


Dirty Move

by thelunarqueen



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2019-11-07 04:44:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17953835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelunarqueen/pseuds/thelunarqueen
Summary: Do Kyungsoo was more than happy to be an invisible guy. He had an eccentric best friend, played a horn at the school's dull band and attended to book club on fridays. His only wish was to face his last year on high school the same way he always did: without drawing too much attention to himself. But the boy sees his plans go downhill when he has his biggest secret revealed. Now Kyungsoo not only has to get used to be on the spotlight for the first time, but also has to learn how to deal with the obnoxious quarterback of the football team, Kim Jongin.





	1. The Invisible Boy

**Author's Note:**

> *I'm not the author of this fanfiction, just the translator. All credits to YOUGOT7JAMS (on twitter and spiritfanfiction). The original version is in pt-br and it's named "Golpe Baixo".

Do Kyungsoo was invisible.

Not in the literal sense of the word, unfortunately. Maybe if he were the protagonist of some fantastic fiction about wizards in a magic school, becoming invisible would seem a thousand times more interesting. And it was not. Not remotely. After all, being invisible in high school is never synonymous with good thing.

He was part of the school's band. If only that meant boys rehearsing in a garage falling to pieces with guitars, drums, and a Nirvana poster on the wall.

The small one was no Kurt Cobain, to be honest. His place was there, in the third row of a ridiculous march of musicians, playing his horn to the four corners of the crowded stadium and at the same time for no one in particular.

He was glad to be an invisible boy, even without Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.

Being in the spotlight never made him feel like a star, despite being the outstanding musician of the wind instruments. All he wanted was to go through the three years of high school without standing out too much. He was already being Do Kyungsoo for two years. Just Do Kyungsoo, the horn boy and the quiet guy from book club. This was his last year of high school, and he sincerely hoped that those three hundred and sixty-five days would be filled with peace. As always.

Until, of course, he realized that he was completely mistaken.

"Hey, look over here, losers!" a mocking voice said, drawing the boys' attention in the hallway.

Kyungsoo was the first to look. Not out of curiosity, but out of reflex. It was unusual for someone to talk to him and his best friend around the hallways, so he just couldn't help it. Just as he can't help it when that tiny sticky paper ball stuck to one of his glasses, then slid down to the floor and left a trail of drool behind.

Three boys in football coats looked towards him, a milk shake straw strategically sustained between their lips and tens, perhaps thousands, of crumpled paper in their side pockets.

"These athletes are a pain in the ass." Minseok remarked, waving his coat to get rid of the wet paper balls that had stuck to his shirt. They kept blowing their spitballs until the two of them turned around the corner. "Third year of high school and we were targeted to be bullied right now? The mockery policy of this school is a little suspicious. Aren't they supposed to be after freshmen?"

Kyungsoo let out a long breath as he reached for his locker.

"Well, four-eyed-Jongdae graduated last year, right?" he asked, a little disinterested. "I don't think they've found anyone so interesting to take advantage of."

"You meant they did not find anyone so uninteresting to take advantage of," the friend corrected. "And, come on, we're not even that uninteresting ! I'm even in my Captain America sweatshirt today, even though I haven't seen any of the Marvel movies. People like this, right? These superhero stuff."

"If you're in the comic book club, maybe, and it's not meant to discourage you or anything, but I think they prefer Iron Man."

"This is unbelievable."

They grabbed their Physics books, their cases and then closed their lockers with a thud. Minseok's was already full of marshmallow stickers and funny polaroids of his cats. Kyungsoo's, as always, was empty. Decoration level zero. He didn't bother to stuff it with things, since they always changed their lockers at the end of each school year.

"Oh, and in case you forgot" Kyungsoo added, "We're two nerds who wear glasses, and I play the horn in the school band. We don't go to parties, we don't date a nice girl ... And we also don't smell marijuana like the cool guys do out there, on those lame stinky groups around the corner."

"Well, you don't smell marijuana, anyway"

"Whatever." He shrugged, practically crawling in his brown sneakers down the hall. "You see, we're definitely the most boring guys in high school."

Before they could enter the classroom, the three musketeers of the football team passed by again, patting their backs with no sincere intentions. They made fun of their Coke-bottle glasses and walked away, their mocking chuckles echoing down the hall.

Kyungsoo will have no peace that year.

Not so soon.

***

Kyungsoo spent the rest of the day with his glasses stained with drool and a "kick me" note glued to his back. If it had not been for Minseok, the boy would have gone home with that unfriendly note still hanging in his uniform.

As they climbed the side steps of the bleachers during the class break, the friend noticed the torn notebook sheet pasted on his back and pulled it out with a tug.

"That explains why the idiots in the volleyball club knocked me down at lunch." Kyungsoo snorted, exhausted, and then turned to his friend. "Ah, dammit ... You have one too, Minseok."

The feline-eyed boy circled over in perfect three hundred and sixty degrees, trying unsuccessfully to tear the paper off his back. Kyungsoo kindly ripped it off for him.

"And that explains why Zitao from the Kung Fu club knocked me down at lunch."

Kyungsoo took a deep breath.

"This year is going to be the worst."

"Relax, this is just the first day."

"Wow," he replied, clicking his tongue "You really know how to cheer someone up"

They sat in the seats of the last row with a packet of chips, the ones that left their fingertips orange, and shared a cold can of coke.The boys didn't have the habit of attending soccer games during the break, mostly because it was almost always a pandemonium with all those athletes back and forth, cheerleaders with short skirts begging for attention and lot of snoopy people.

The thing was, the social pyramid was very clear about the schools' implicit rules, and this was a popular students area and for Kyungsoo, a place where he could stay away from the chaos of the cafeteria from time to time. He only used to visit the bleachers during club games or rehearsals, because the first row was always reserved to the band's members.

Beneath them, girls of the first and second year waved their pompoms and yelled to the players on the field. Several names escaped their lips filled with pink lipstick, but one of them was chanted more often than Minseok could bear.

"Dude, I swear if I hear the name Kim Jongin again ..." he murmured, but the rest of the sentence didn't leave immediately. He always took longer than necessary to think of a threat. The boy was the fluffy type even when he tried to intimidate someone. "I'll probably fill the person's backpack with ants. Or beetles. Or locusts."

Kyungsoo drank the rest of the coke with a sip.

"Oh, that's good. I bet they would never forget the trauma."

"Ha-ha-ha," he countered, his voice filled with irony. "You're a terrible best friend for pretending that it was a good idea."

"No, seriously, I'll bet that when they are eighty years old with their fingers as wrinkled as raisins and dentures that are falling out of their mouths, the only thing they are going to remember is the day a boy put ants into their backpack in high school. "

He laughed and reached into the packet of chips.

"I haven't decided yet, they may be beetles."

"Or locusts." Kyungsoo continued, with a dramatic sigh. "And I bet it's going to be hard to get over it."

Minseok completely ignored all the basic hygiene rules when he grabbed a handful of orange chips, lifted his uniform up to his belly button, and put them on his T-shirt, his improvised kangaroo pouch.Then he went down a step and lay sprawled on the bleachers, covering his eyes with his forearm to avoid the sun on his face.

As soon as his friend took the phone out of his pocket, Kyungsoo knew he'd been pushed aside.

He looked out at the field, where athletes of every year were gathered for a friendly match, and his eyes accidentally landed on the tanned figure and the biceps that the sleeve of his shirt raised to the shoulder let on display.

When the quarterback removed his helmet, he was smiling, his hair sticking to his forehead. The small guy did not follow the last move, but he was sure that Kim Jongin had just made an incredible move, because all the other boys were crowding around him and patting him on the shoulders.

He shook his head, finding everything ridiculous.

"What does everyone see in him?" he asked, to no one in particular.

Minseok lifted his eyes from the cell phone, licking his fingertips to get rid of the layer of orange powder from the chips.

"In whom?"

"Kim Jongin, the star of the football team."

His friend frowned and stood up. His uniform was now filthy and his hair was pointing north, south, east, west, and who knows where else.

He gave me a look that seemed to mean: Can you believe this guy?

"In what parallel reality were you living while all those teen movies were on TV?" he asked, in a mocking tone. "I think it's a bit obvious, he's handsome, he's one of the best players on the team and he's got the longest legs in the world.That kind of makes him the most popular guy in school, but that's not all. He is also of the unreachable type. The typical mysterious boy who never fell in love. No one seems to know Jongin for real, so he turns out to be what people dream of him to be. He is a fantasy."

Kyungsoo mused over it, biting the straw from the empty can.

"This is a bit sad."

"Yeah, I guess so." He sighed. "But you know what's sadder, you and me being bullied in our last year in high school! Our last year, for God's sake, how did this happen?"

"In what parallel reality were you living while all those teen movies were on TV?" Kyungsoo imitated him, clearing his throat before making his clichéd speech. "You are in the audio and video club, which is one of the least popular of the school, you're a maniac for cute kittens videos and the only friend you have besides me is an anonymous guy you met online in a dating app and has never seen in your life."

He looked at his cell phone, as if expecting a message to arrive that second. But the sound of notifications didn't come, and he simply gave up.

"Yeah, you're right, we're the biggest losers in school, I guess it was just a matter of time before anyone noticed." He blocked his cell phone screen, sat with his legs folded close to his body and thought for a few seconds. Then he smiled mischievously, and Kyungsoo hated that smile more than anything. "I have an idea!"

"Oh no."

"Relax, Soo," he said, looking very determined, as if each of his cells wanted to shout to the world how wonderful his idea was. "I know exactly what we need to do to stop being the main target of bullying."

"Go to a school on the other side of Korea?"

Minseok punched him in the arm and rolled his eyes.

"Kyungsoo, for Christ's sake, give me break! I swear it's a good idea this time."

The boy took a deep breath, predicting a mess. Because that was exactly the kind of thing that the best friend would say before having some brilliant idea that would put them in trouble like that summer, two years ago, when he suggested that the two of them would climb a tree during a trip and they end up running into a beehive full of furious bees.

The result: Kyungsoo spent the next two weeks with his ass aching and so swollen that even his parents called him Nicki Minaj.

The boy was sure he would regret it, but even so he decided he should trust Minseok. For the last time.

"All right." he agreed, defeated. "What's the plan?"

 

*** 

That was a terrible idea.

Overall, Kyungsoo loved parties. He especially liked the sweets, the small savory snacks and the pointy hats that made everyone look like goblins. The problem was, the last time he went to a party, people were still getting presents wrapped in shiny papers, blowing out candles and making wishes.

That night, Kyungsoo was begging for mercy.

The place seemed to be some sort of abandoned club, with people bumping up against each other in the hallways, drinks in their hands and music so loud his ears would hurt.

It was like in the movies. The girls wore very short skirts, some boys carried their own bottle of beer, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves as if there were no tomorrow.

The areas seemed to be precisely divided. On one hand, the athletes and cheerleaders sat on the tables and benches, swinging their legs from side to side. On the other, some Goths gathered in a group, all wearing shirts from bands Kyungsoo never heard of. The hippie guys who liked to play guitar were in the yard, sitting on the lawn as if they were in their own small world. Kyungsoo, however, felt like he didn't fit anywhere.

Before he can think of anything else, his best friend was already offering him one of those red plastic cups.

"Drunken people and glass cups are not a very good combination," Minseok explained, as if that information were really important.

"So, basically, your idea is for us to go to cool people parties so everyone will think we're cool too." He lifted the corner of his mouth in what was probably a smile, but it looked rather like a death threat.

"Come on, Kyungsoo. It's all gonna be fine. You'll see."

The friend held a video camera directed to his face, gesturing for him to say something cool. In his spare time, the boy always carried his damned camera everywhere. Sometimes Minseok acted as if there were a huge crew there, making a fuss about any "unheard-of" event. And that, unfortunately, was "unheard of" enough to arouse his desire to record every moment.

"Don't be shy, Soo." he encouraged, bending his knees and positioning the device in front of his face.

He gave in, finally facing the camera once and for all and holding it from both sides, but keeping the same bored expression.

"Your birth certificate must be an apology from the condom factory, Minseok, honestly."

And then just walked out, God knows where.

That would be a long night.

***

 

The men's room was oscillating. Kyungsoo was sure.

Everything was spinning. And spinning. And spinning. And spinning.

He staggered to one of the cabins and sat on the toilet with the lid down, holding on the sides for fear of tripping. Or worse: lose his balance and fall on the floor again.

Around him, all the walls were dark, painted with neon sprays and scrawled with stories he couldn't read.He was seeing everything blurred and was hating every minute of it.

Outside, he could still distinguish the screaming people and the muffled sound of a Knye West song from the other side of the wall. It had been more than an hour since he had lost sight of Minseok. Feeling defeated and the most stupid human being on the planet, the boy leaned his head on the partition of the cabin and hugged himself to a bottle of soju that he would swore he had no idea how it had appeared there.

"Oh, shoot." he murmured, because it seemed that his ability to curse was further weakened when he was drunk.

Kyungsoo needed to pee, but he doubted he would have the strength to pull his pants down. Before he tried to balance himself inside the bathroom, a familiar face invaded his line of sight.

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Minseok, staring at the pitiful figure sitting with his legs spread out in that filthy cubicle. "How many glasses did you drink?"

The boy raised the fingers of one hand, but he didn't seem so sure of his count. Three. Four. And then five.

"I don't know."

"Look at you, completely drunk and lost, and I don't even have my camera to record this iconic moment."

Kyungsoo didn't even notice the absence of his friend's camera. Instead, he began to sing Cheer Up quietly and lift the bottle up and down, looking foolish.

For a few seconds, the bathroom became a confusion made up of verses sung by hoarse voice and laughter. Minseok sat cross-legged inside the cabin, watching his best friend smile as he rehearsed some comic gestures, waving his arms each time he reached the chorus.

When it was over, the boy thought it was a good time for important revelations.

"Minseok, I'm gay." he said, now very serious.

"I know"

"No, seriously. I'm, like, very gay."

"I know, Soo," he replied, laughing. "Since sixth grade."

"Noooooo."

"Yessssss." he argued, holding onto one of his friend's legs to get up. "You told me on your thirteenth birthday, remember? You just had a horrible crush on freakin' Zac Efron and you knew the whole choreography of Oops!..I Did It Again. Believe me, I know."

Minseok had a lot of patience with drunk people.

"Freakin'Zac Efron." Kyungsoo repeated.

"Great, that's enough. Let's go home. I'll never let you drink again."

As his friend pulled his arms, trying to lift him from the toilet bowl, Kyungsoo still did not give up.

He gripped Minseok's shoulder, dropped the bottle on the floor and tapped it lightly on his chest, as if he was about to say something very important.

"I loved freakin' Zac Efron."

"Yeah, everyone already had a crush on Zac Efron."

"Freakin'. Zac. Efron." He repeated, and then burst into laughter, his hair sticking to his forehead. That was the result of a party in a stuffy place, with lots of dry ice, a ton of teenage boys sneaking into the same small space and illegal alcohol ingestion by minors.

Kyungsoo felt exhausted. His body was sore and his legs showed no sign that they could move, so he had to leave with one arm wrapped around his friend, still humming Cheer Up. And then Oops! ... I Did It Again. And then, to finish, Bet On It.

As they walked away from the bathroom, he could have sworn he saw the reflection of a familiar figure in the mirror, perhaps it was just his imagination. Or the alcohol. Or anything else.

Kyungsoo was still laughing when they both left the party.

***

That Monday, Minseok was waiting for him outside the school entrance. And that was one of the things he only did when he had some news to tell, especially if it was so good that he couldn't wait for their first class.

He was tapping one of the sneakers on the floor impatiently. And the look on his face didn't seem good at all. Kyungsoo realized that it was something really, really bad.

"What's up." he greeted him. "Who died?"

Besides, of course, my dignity last night. he mentally added.

"Well, no one ... But ..."

"Did you get chlamydia from someone on a Saturday? Or were you dismissed before you even had sex because of your kitten underwear? Did you find out that your virtual crush is actually a sixty-year-old organ dealer living in Frankfurt? Or worse than that ... " He let his jaw drop, dramatrically."You put ants in some girl's backpack because she loves soccer players!"

"Actually..."

"Or beetles."

"That is not..."

"Or locusts."

"For God's sake, Kyungsoo! This has nothing to do with me." Minseok gripped his shoulders, seeming more serious than he'd ever seen. "Let's get in, and then I'll explain everything."

In front of the gate, one of the supervisors checked if the students were dressed according to the school's rules, sometimes barring the entry of girls with a lot of makeup and some boys who dared to come without uniforms under the sweater.

Jihyo, a second year girl, lowered her skirt so that it was at the length allowed by the standards before she passed by. And then, having passed them, she lifted the garment to her navel's height to make it shorter. Clever.

Some athletes bowed before the supervisor. Oh Sehun, the wide-receiver of the football team, watched Kyungsoo with a smirk before he went on his way.

The boy wondered if that meant anything, or if it was just his imagination.

A few steps later, Yeri, the president of Science Club passed by him and sighed sadly. First year girls exchanged whispers and giggles as the two of them crossed the hall.

And as if that weren't enough, the guys on the basketball team seemed about to spit out some nasty comment when they sat down on one of the benches.

And then Kyungsoo became convinced that he was actually imagining things. After all, he was an invisible guy. It wasn't possible that all the students were noticing him for the first time in his life.

"Listen, Kyungsoo ..." began Minseok, speaking softly so that only he could hear it. "I just wanted to say that I have nothing to do with what's going on. I lost my camera somewhere at that party, and I would never do that to you."

"Do what?"

The boy was taking off his sneakers at the entrance and swapping them for the slippers in his locker when he noticed something was wrong.

A sheet slipped from inside the locker and landed a few inches from his feet and he had the feeling that his senior year in high school was ruined. Once and for all.

It was a new edition of the school's newspaper. With a picture of him that someone had probably found in his abandoned Intragram account.

THE GAY BOY OF YONGSAN HIGH SCHOOL.

In large letters. Huge. Stratospheric.

Kyungsoo held his breath and took the newspaper, but was stopped by his friend who tore the sheet in a thousand pieces.

Then the boy, who wore a black cap with cat ears pinned to the top, pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket and held it up in front of his face.

"Someone recorded our conversation in the bathroom and posted it on YouTube." He said, whispering. "It's running around on everyone's cell phone. This is everywhere, Soo. I think the whole school saw the video. Well, apparently, except you."

He pressed play, and then everything seemed to turn upside down. From one moment to the next, Kyungsoo had become "the gay boy" of the school. Not that he wanted to hide his sexual orientation. Far from it. If he could, he would shout to the four corners of the world about who he was and wouldn't be ashamed. He just didn't want it to be that way. He didn't want people to choose for him.

If Kyungsoo was metaphorically inside the closet, he was the only one who had the right to open the doors.

He looked at the screen of the cell phone with a twinge of embarrassment as he watched himself in that state, raising the bottle like an idiot.

"Minseok, I'm gay." 

"I know"

"No, seriously. I'm, like, very gay."

"I know, Soo, since sixth grade"

"Noooooo."

"Yessssss." 

During his glorious moments of drunk-karaoke-singer he didn't have time, nor disposition, to be honest, to look at all the names and sketches inside the open cabin. Behind him, contrasting with the dark wall, was a penis that had probably been drawn by some kid with middle school syndrome, which only contributed to that scene to be a thousand times worse.

Better not comment on the phrase that said Shine like a slut written on the wooden door. It was all a whole new level of embarrassment.

"Dammit." he cursed. "Dammit, dammit, dammit."

Minseok took a deep breath.

"I know. That sucks, man."

"Do you know who it was?"

The friend shook his head, denying it.

"No, but I heard he got punished. The director and coordinators are still with my camera to evaluate the video and take action."

The alarm rang, announcing the start of classes. At that moment, he thought of running away. He calculated what were his chances of passing unoticed by the supervisors, jumping up the wall and not coming back until the end of the school year. Or until the world really ended, as they promised in 2012. Until no one else remembered who Kyungsoo was, or until he reincarnated in a completely different body.

It was a good plan.

A plan that, unfortunately, he had no chance of succeed.

So the boy had to face the rest of the class dolding his head high. Or almost that.

His mission was to survive until break and he did a good job ignoring the whispers and giggling as he sat in the front row of the class during math class. Nor did he give a damn when Siwon, a sturdy boy who was part of the Christian Club, decided to move and sit on the other side of the classroom, leaving the Bible on the table as if it could somehow save him from all evil. As if Kyugsoo was Satan's new best friend.

Staying alive and mentally stable until break was an easy task. Of course, apart from the fact that a freshman had insisted on staying at least four urinals away from Kyungsoo in the men's room, It was not a big deal.Because, it seems, besides having now a place by the devil's side, he had also gained the power to demolish the penis of his colleagues with one look.

After class, while he was reviewing a score at the Music Club, his fingers sliding gently down the gold horn, he heard someone whisper "Hey, High School Musical." but he thought it wise to pretend he didn't hear it.

"We have a new student." the teacher announced shortly before class began. Kyungsoo didn't listen, focusing his attention on his instrument.

"The little rebel here made fun of one of our students and was almost suspended, but me and director Kang thought it would be a good idea if he changed the suspension for a few months in Music Club."

One of the students smothered a cry of joy, euphoric.

Some students let out a soft "Wow", and others even let out a sequence of almost inaudible boos. Kyungsoo froze in place, unable to lift his face. He didn't want to face the idiot who'd spread his secret for the whole school, but everyone looked surprised for some reason. And that was something Kyungsoo simply could not ignore.

"It is quite obvious that he is here against his will, but I would like if you could teach him something. I think he has a lot to learn from you all."

Kyungsoo felt his stomach turn.

As he turned his attention from the horn in his hands and looked up, he immediately recognized the boy standing next to the teacher. He was tall, with an enviable golden skin and posture of a good-looking Hollywood guy. His hands were buried in the pockets of his soccer team coat and there were headphones hanging around his neck.  
The most popular guy in school.

And, now, his new full-time nightmare.

Kim Jongin.


	2. The Adversary

Of all things in the world, Jongin didn't think he would have to deal with menstrual pads this early in the morning.

When the first message arrived, sneaky and at the same time desperate, appearing still kind of timid in the his cell phone's notification bar, he could only read the first sentence.

Joy (without the Division):  
Houston we have a problem!

 

He raised a suspicious eyebrow. Because, to be honest, Jongin rarely knew when his friend was serious or just messing with him. This was just one of the quirks of being Park Sooyoung's closest childhood friend.

The soccer star turned his attention away from the device for a few seconds, watching his two friends shamelessly steal some french fries from his extra-large portion.

"She has beautiful eyes, and beautiful legs too." Sehun said, sighing loudly as one of the cheerleaders, Bae Joohyun, passed by their table in the cafeteria.It was even weird to see such a bully resting his face on his palm as he talked about these romantic nonsense."And when she's rehearsing the choreography of the cheerleaders in the field, sometimes I can see her panties."

Right. Maybe not so romantic.

"Wow," Yifan snapped, wryly. "That was deep, man."

"Shut up."

The chinese stole another french fry from Jongin's bowl, placing it in the corner of his mouth as if it were a cigarette and bending over the table, just to have the pleasure of teasing his friend.

"No, really. It was really nice of you to notice her panties. Tell us. Which color was it? "

Sehun's fist hit the table. The impact was so strong that it made the portion of french fries levitate for a brief moment.

"You bastard." he countered, practically grunting between his teeth. "Keep yourself and your filthy eyes away from her panties, or I swear to God I'll ..."

And so the quarterback knew immediately that he should leave. Nothing good happened when the two bullies decided to face each other in their spare time. The two were like fighting cocks, fighting for territory in a ridiculously natural way. It was almost a kind of hobby. "

Sehun always made it very clear that anyone who dared to meddle with Bae Joohyun would be doomed to fail, and above all, to take some punches in the face. And it was even worse when Byun Baekhyun got in the way. He was the linebacker of the neighboring school football team, and also his mortal enemy since elementary school.

The two were legendary rivals, even if they only saw each other occasionally, in some friendly match between schools. Both had been in love with the same girl for years, which had led to countless fights and cheats involving laxatives, itching powder and lubricant. They were not very original, unfortunately.

Jongin decided it was a good idea to get out of there as fast as possible. As he sneaked through the corridors, receiving a pat on the back and compliments from people he didn't even know, his cell phone vibrated again in his pocket.

It was Sooyoung.

 

Joy (without the Division):  
Kim Jongin.

I summon you.

Now!!!!!!!

Seriously, boy. I need your help.

 

Jongin:  
What happened??????

 

Joy (without the Division):  
I'm stuck in the ladies' locker room because someone stole my uniform

I need some spare clothes

And menstrual pads (don't you dare ask any questions)

COME ASAP, PLEASE

 

With a mission in mind, the boy had to get by the curious looks and go to her locker, because he already knew the password by heart. After picking up her spareclothes, he found himself entering unoticed at the infirmary, where there was a secret drawer intended for female emergencies. He stared at the endless supply of colored packages.

Thick. Thin.

Night time. Daytime.

With wings. No wings.

With scent of flowers from the field. No scent at all.

He took a deep breath, picked up a package of pads with wings. And smiled proudly, sure that he had made the right choice. For Jongin, this was the only advantage of having lived with two older sisters for years.

Inside the locker room, some girls were still changing, talking and parading in front of their locker wearing only underwear. As he entered, the place burst into screams, curses, and dozens of angry glances as he made his way across the space to the bathroom.

Jongin allowed himself to smile when he saw all those girls on the volleyball team cover their half naked bodies with towels and run back to the shower area. And he had the audacity to give a wink to those who remained static, still standing in the same place, staring at him as if he were a godly appearance.

"This is so typical of you, Jongin." said Sooyoung's voice, sounding slightly muffled inside one of the cabins. "Making it all a big event."

He stood beside the only cabin that was occupied, leaning his back against the wall and crossing his arms against his chest.

"That must be one of my talents." He bragged, shrugging.

"Okay, loverboy, did you bring what I asked for?" She asked and didn't wait for him to respond. Sooyoung held out one hand, so that it appeared beneath the door, her fist moving as if she was trying to catch something in the air. "Give it to me."

Jongin had to hold back the laughter as he made a mischievous expression that, unfortunately, his friend couldn't see. He shook his head and murmured a 'uh-uh'. In the language of best-worst-friends-since-kindergarten, they both knew that it used to mean 'did you really believe that I was going to let you get away from this so easy?'.

"Only if you say I'm the best friend in the world."

"Oh, my gosh. Are you really that devoid of attention?" she teased, cliking her tongue in disbelief. "Poor thing."

Jongin didn't give up.

"Go on, admit that I'm the best. Just say it at once."

"Or," she suggested, biased. "You can just give me the damn pads and let it go."

"I do not want to discourage you, Joy, but you're not exactly in a position to bargain." He puffed up his chest, proud of his argument. It was difficult, not to say impossible, to win a discussion with Park Sooyoung. Even when he was right, Jongin was wrong. It was just the natural law of things. "It will not hurt, I swear. Just one 'Oh My God, Jongin! You are the best friend of this whole world.' and I'll give you the pads."

She grunted, and Jongin could almost imagine her rolling her eyes.

"Is that supposed to be me speaking?"

"Park Sooyoung ..." he muttered and tilted his head to the side in a tone typical of a father about to lecture his daughter. It was a shame she couldn't see him.

A few seconds of silence passed until he heard the toilet flicker, and then he could hear her sighing loudly.

"Right, right," she snorted, giving up. "You are the best friend in the world."

"The whole world." he corrected.

"I swear to God, Jongin... If you don't give me that crap right now, I'll rip your balls and use them to decorate the Christmas tree at the end of the year."

He let out a laugh, finally giving in. Jongin bent his knees and leaned down to throw the package through the narrow space below the cabin door.

"Wow. It would be quite a scene. I'd bet your parents would love it."

She laughed.

"They would."

Jongin waited outside, walking the opposite way to the exit of the dressing room, where some girls peeped inquisitively, trying to understand the relationship that the football team quarterback had with Park Sooyoung, an unpopular girl from second year.

Joy - nickname that Jongin himself had given her in elementary school, since the girl was a big fan of Joy Division - left the bathroom with her dark hair messed up, the tips slipping at shoulder height. Her eyes looked red, as if she had cried a lot.

Jongin wanted to smack himself for not having noticed.

She stood beside him in the hallway, leaning against the wall as if she wanted to merge with the concrete. The girl had a hard time making friends, especially after she had left the popular group of cheerleaders to become the pivot of the volleyball team.

"After." she promised.

He ignored her.

"Are the girls being mean to you?" he turned around, worried. "Did they get your clothes?"

Sooyoung lifted her sweatshirt twice as big as her to her face and sniffed, discouraged.

"I'll tell you later, I swear." she repeated. "Now I need to go to class. People are looking."

She didn't even nod when she lowered her head, pulled a lock of hair behind her ear and started to walk, her sneakers screeching against the floor.

Jongin had no choice. All he could do was watch as his best friend mingled with the other students in the hallway, disappearing from view.

***

Minseok's bedroom had posters of Star Wars movies, stacks of CD's with his recorded videos, a frame with a reference to some indie band that no one had ever heard of, and a collection of plushie kittens he had bought from some unknown Japanese site. It was a culture clash.

"So ... what's he like?" He asked.

Kyungsoo stopped reading his copy of The Catcher in the Rye and looked up, seeing Minseok lying face down on the bed, legs dangling childishly.

"He who?"

"Kim Jongin," the boy replied, as if it were obvious. "The handsome athlete. The new student of the Music Club. Your new enemy in your spare time. What is he like?"

Kyungsoo frowned at the word enemy.

"It is not a big deal." He shrugged, indifferent."All he does is sit in his chair, put on the headphones and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist until the end of the class. He has not even come close to touching an instrument. I doubt it he even has breathed close to one."

Minseok laughed, thrusting his face into the astronaut duvet to stifle his laughter. Then he looked back at the other, his expression growing serious again.

"And you're okay? I mean, with this video coming out and everything?" He questioned, resting his face in one hand.

Kyungsoo just sighed, turning a page from the book. Minseok chose not to mention that, deep down, he knew he was not really reading. His friend was already about half an hour on the same page.

"I feel like I have a contagious disease." he confessed, and for the first time in his life Miseok saw his eyes water. "Some people look at me as if they wanted to put me in quarantine, and others look at me as if they feel sorry for me. I believe they think my small piece of land in hell has been officially reserved. Frankly, I don't know what's worse."

"I know it seems difficult right now, but you know how teenagers are. The subject is going to die quickly in a few days, and no one will remember who Kyungsoo is."

"I hope so, I'm tired of having all that attention." he mumbled, tossing his head back and placing the book on his face, trying to hide under the yellow pages. "I want to be invisible again."

"I'm sorry." Minseok whispered. "That was a terrible idea."

Kyungsoo shook his head. The book almost fell.

"It wasn't your fault."

Minseok didn't know how to answer to that. He knew he wasn't good with words and that only made things worse when someone had to be comforted. The boy felt useless and, mainly, a poor friend.

Later, when Kyungsoo returned home and left him alone, the boy still felt guilty. He laid his head on the pillow, the back of his neck resting on one hand and the cell phone on the other. He scoured the main menu of the device looking for his favorite app, Hornet. It was an online platform to find people close to your region for a romantic date. An one hundred percent gay social network.

Sadly, his only reason to keep the application downloaded on cell phone was a boy his age whom he loved to talk in his spare time. But, unfortunately, even after months talking with a complete stranger, Minseok still didn't met him personally. He didn't even have a picture of the guy.

He opened the chat, anxious. A silly smile immediately began to appear on his lips.

Chameleon_81 is online.

Without even thinking about it twice, he typed a message longer than usual, venting about his best friend situation and how he felt about it. He took a deep breath and allowed his thumb to hover for a few seconds before pressing enter on his keyboard.

He flattened his back against the pillow, feeling his heart race.

And then he sent it.

The minutes seemed to drag on for hours until the boy finally answered.

 

Chameleon_81:

Dear Puss in Boots,

You're not a bad friend. Actually, I think if anyone ever list the best friends in the world, like they do with billionaires at Forbes, you're sure to be at the top. Second place, because you're too modest to be first, and also because, frankly, I think Wilson deserves the top. Wilson. Yeah. That volley ball that becomes Tom Hanks' best company in Cast Away. Sorry, man. You know you just can't compete with that. But, really, I hope you'll forgive me for being a lousy counselor. And don't worry, because you are an incredible person, even if you don't realize it...  
Well, maybe that's why you're my best friend.

 

Puss in Boots:

Dear Chameleon Boy,

As always, your message made me much more relieved and happy. Really!  
I think I'll even buy a volleyball.  
But I must confess that if you intend to become my best friend, you must know that I have very strict rules in this matter.  
I don't know if I can handle this mania of sending messages as if they were letters, so I feel obliged to warn you.  
There is a magic key on your phone's keyboard called "Send".  
Or enter.  
I do not know exactly what people call it now. It's an arrow.  
What matters is that thanks to it you do not have to send all the phrases in the same message.  
Sincerely,  
Puss in Boots.

 

Chameleon_81: 

Is  
that  
better?  
I  
think  
I've  
learned  
now.

 

Puss in Boots:

You are ridiculous.  
What matters is that you don't have to worry about being formal, do you understand?  
We're not in a chapter of Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda.  
Although I think we even seem like Simon and Blue.

 

Chameleon_81: 

Maybe I want you to be the Simon to my Blue.

 

Minseok held his breath in his lungs and tossed his head back, sinking her into the pillow. He had no idea that a simple phrase could make his night a thousand times better. But it could. The boy almost felt he could float. With his heart racing and an immense smile wishing to appear on his lips, he typed in a single sentence.

 

Puss in Boots:

Maybe you're already mine.

***

Sehun never espared no effort on getting himself a girl.

Although, his interest was for a specific girl. Bae Joohyun. And if she was wearing pleated red skirts with two white lines on the bottom. The shorter the better. That was his own definition of paradise.

During the interval of a match, there was nothing better than beautiful girls parading with belly button, thighs and a lot of skin on display. He loved that whole choreography thing with pirouettes and pompoms swinging everywhere.

And panties. Lots of panties. That was the perfect place to mess with the hormones of a heterosexual guy.

As he passed bt this group of uniformed girls, Sehun straightened his helmet over his right arm and smiled at the captain, all gallant, but she only returned it by rolling her eyes, her expression still impassive.

"You look beautiful today, Frozen." He praised, before following in heavy steps to one of the benches.

After years of unrequited love, Sehun was used to it. And Joohyun, with no exaggeration, was the Titanic's iceberg herself. The truth was that the wide-receiver was not bothered easily. It took much more than cursing his mother and speaking ill of his ill-received passes after a football match to annoy him.

The secret to make Sehun lose control and punch someone had a name, a surname and wore the number 4 on the back of the uniform.

"Looks like we met earlier this year, Oh Sehun." said a familiar voice, shortly before the boy felt his shoulders being hit by a smaller body than his, the impact of the shoulder pad leaving his left arm aching.

If the evil figure resembled a person, it would probably be Byun Baekhyun.

"Did you miss me already, shrimp?" Sehun teased, bending just to brag about his extra inches. "No need to worry, you'll see my handsome face until the end of the season, because we're definitely going to win."

The other boy shrugged.

"You said the same thing last year, and yet our school won the championship."

"Don't even start, Byun." he countered. And in the next second, he was already grabbing the boy by the shirt, pulling him so close that he could feel their breathing mingling. "You know very well that we just didn't win because you put itching powder on our uniforms. You cheated." They were dangerously close, their foreheads almost against each other, like one of those movie scenes where two bullies decide to confront. The wide-receiver raised an eyebrow in challenge, practically grunting all those sentences. And yet the Byun still had the nerve to smile, satisfied.

"It's so easy to get you angry, Oh Sehun."

"Shut up."

"And I did not even have to say Joohyun's name ..." he continued, feeling the grip on the collar of his T-shirt loosen. "Do you still keep being rejected by her every day? Don't you ever get tired?"

Sehun stepped back, keeping a safe distance, fearing he could hit his arch enemy at any moment if he spoke some nonsense about his girl.

Baekhyun grinned.

"Let's do this way." he suggested, folding his arms across his chest. "Whoever wins the championship this year stays with the girl."

The boy took a second to decide, and then patted the smaller boy's chest.

"Right."

"Right." he repeated. "Even though I think it's impossible that she would want to be with you."

"And you think she'd choose to be with you? With your height of Bonsai woodcutter?

Baekhyun opened his mouth, ready to fight back with thousands of nicknames that were not politically correct, but was interrupted when the coach of his team blew his whistle, calling all the students from Daewon High School for a quick reunion before returning to the game.

The cheerleaders organized themselves to perform the choreography and the students who played in the school band, practically invisible in the front row of the bleachers now descended the steps to the field. Even if it was just a friendly match, it was a great opportunity to rehearse.

Even Gray Wolf, the mysterious mascot of the Yongsan team, walked briskly in front of the audience, waving his arms and waving his huge wolf costume. Three years had passed since Kibum had graduated and said farewell to his mascot position. Since then, the identity of the student replacing him had been kept in absolute secrecy. No one even suspected who might be hiding under all that costume.

As the two teams gathered, the students in the stands were already punching their seats or on their own thighs, in that fun tradition of harmonizing the crowd in the overwhelming rhythm of the song We Will Rock You. Sehun put his helmet on his head and approached his teammates as soon as the chorus of hands, feet and voices began.

"We're not going to let it lie, guys. The Yongsan High School needs to show them what we're made of. " the coach said, repeating the same encouraging speech the wide-receiver had heard thousands of times. "We're seven points ahead of them, we can't quit now, right? It doesn't matter if this is a friendly game or a championship final, you have the mission to go there with your head held high and come out as winners. We've done a good training in the past few weeks, so just follow what we've been practicing and execute the strategies we've planned. I trust you guys. "

"Yes, coach!" the players responded in unison, their arms resting on each other's shoulders.

Then, turning to Jongin, who had traces of black paint on his cheeks and an enthusiastic smile appearing behind the protective grids of his helmet, he gave him some more instructions. At last he said goodbye to the players with pat on the back and an excited war cry.

"Go through the middle and the sides." the quarterback guided, welcoming the entire team into a group and, as usual, handing that confident smile that never left his lips. "I want you to analyze the field before any movement, understood? Every play matters. Today is our day to win!"

In the first fifteen minutes, Daewon's team managed to advance six points ahead of them. Sehun felt the sweat pour down the side of his neck as he executed the planned route, crossing the field at high speed and trying to get rid of the opposing team's defensive. When he glanced back quickly at Jongin, he was too marked to move forward. The quarterback threw the ball before colliding with a guy bigger than him, and the wide-receiver didn't need much effort to receive it a few yards from the bottom line.

Kim Jongin's passes were always perfect. He was a real star.

Sehun advanced to the endzone before one of the blockers reached him, raising the ball like a trophy as the crowd exploded in shouts, claps and whistles.

Touchdown!

In the next move, the Yongsan High School scored two more points with a Safety by knocking out a kid from the opposing team within the endzone itself. And then they were finally at an advantage. However, the Daewon were serious about what they do. Instead of passing the ball to their team's quarterback, they threw it to the placeholder, who held it firmly on the ground until a kicker could do their job. He kicked it hard, causing it to cross between the "Y" shaped cross bar at the bottom of the field. Three points.

 

Baekhyun didn't seem at all friendly when he faced Sehun in the middle of the field, just seconds before the end of the game. His hair was a mess, clinging to the sides of his face and forehead, and his uniform was now filthy. The wide-receiver was not much different.

 

Although he hated Byun with all his heart, he couldn't deny that he was an exceptional inside linebacker. Byun Baekhyun was simply the defense's brain.

As he passed him, Sehun gave him headbutt with the helmet.

"Not bad, shrimp. But we're still going to win."

The boy grabbed hold of his forearm for a few seconds before allowing him to pull away.

"We'll see, wide-receiver."

With only a few seconds to go, Sehun grabbed the ball and passed it to one of the runners, an exchange boy named Zhang Yixing. The Chinese ran with the ball by the side, as previously agreed, diverting with great agility from the blockers. Jongin also ran to the planned position, waiting for the running back pass.

The first attempt went wrong, and the play ended when one of the boys from the opposing team knocked Yixing down on his way to the endzone. Daewon also missed a chance as Wu Yifan, with all his scary height, disturbed one of the passes of the opponents offensive line and the ball fell to the ground.

There were still seven seconds left. The atmosphere inside the field was almost suffocating, the adrenaline rushing through Sehun's veins as if renewing his energies.His chest went up and down, panting, which only contributed to a satisfied smile appear in the corner of his lips. They still had one last chance. After all, for their coach, losing was never an option.

The center kicked off the ball, taking position against the offensive guard and offensive tackle to make room for the run. Jongin took possession of the ball and instead of throwing it to one of the running backs, decided to run with it. The middle of the field was surprisingly free as he advanced, though a blocker was already coming toward him, forcing him to hurl it at Sehun, who was following him almost side-by-side.

They took different paths. And that, suddenly, was no longer a planned move. He had only three seconds before the end of the match when a player's chest hit his own, almost knocking him out and eliminating any chance Yongsan High School had to win. The boy's shoes slammed into the lawn so hard his heels sank into the ground.

He heard Jongin's voice behind him again, grunting in a few words an unreliable strategy. But there was no time to lose. Without thinking twice, he passed the ball between his own legs and made a short pass for the quarterback, who started running with the ball as if his life depended on it. The friend, after all, always gave his best, no matter what.

Sehun was brutally knocked over. The wide-receiver only had time to look up and see Jongin crossing the endzone, hugging the ball with one arm. The referee confirmed the score, and soon everyone in the stands were up, from the cheerleaders and the band's students accommodated in the first row, to the teachers and visitors who sat on the highest steps.

"And it's a Touchdown, folks!" shouted the voice of Kim Junmyeon, the president of the radio club, coming from the locution cabin. The words echoed across the field, signaling victory. "Yongsan High School wins!"

The students of the music club went down the steps of the grandstand and started playing their instruments. Kyungsoo lifted his horn and other students joined him with trumpets and trombones. Others exhibited drums, rattles, and triangles. The screams of the audience now disappeared in the melody that grew ever higher. Even the team mascot wandered back and forth, jumping with joy and waving his arms.

Sehun took off his helmet and hurried to stand side by side with the smaller guy of the opposing team, repaying the push he had received earlier. As soon as he felt the impact on his shoulder, Baekhyun looked at him. And the wide-receiver expected to see sadness or disappointment in the eyes of the rival, but there was no sign of weakness in those bright brown eyes. He seemed content enough to let out a muffled laugh.

"How does it feel to be on the losing team?" the taller one provoked.

"I'm not on the losing team, Oh Sehun." he countered, smiling in amusement. "Not for long."

As he watched the boy walk away, he was sure there was something behind each of those words. A hidden meaning that made him drop his helmet and almost lose strength in his legs, letting his arms hang down his body for long minutes. The boy couldn't have meant... Or could he?

The fact was that, no doubt, Baekhyun was up to something.

And Sehun didn't like it at all.

 

***

 

Life was much easier when the teenagers' only concern was to recreate conceptual photos on Tumblr.

Assuming that the young people's current priorities had changed, Kyungsoo was sure that his last year could still get worse. And he never hated so much being right. Because as soon as he walked into the music club room on Monday, all eyes were on him.

Being the center of attention was definitely not in his plans, and Kyungsoo wasn't sure he could handle it.

"This year's theme is... Rocky II."

The teacher was already drawing on the board an outline of the arrangement of Redemption, the theme song of Rocky II, because the guy was a big fan of Sylvester Stallone. The year before, when a fake news saying the actor had died of prostate cancer spread, Mr. Kwon practically forced the club's students to dress in black to practice collective mourning. For two weeks.

He sighed and leaned his arms on his backpack on the table, waiting for a miracle to stop that incredible academic speech about Stallone's role in a pornographic movie titled The Party at Kitty and Stud's.

But his miracle, unfortunately, was concealed in a nightmare, walking with his hands in his trouser pockets and a backpack hanging over one shoulder.

Kim Jongin made the teacher shut up, as well as all the murmurs in the back of the room. For long silent seconds, the whole group watched the boy's movements closely as if he were a celebrity.

Ridiculous.

Around Kyungsoo, most of the chairs were empty, and it was right next to him that the guy decided to sit down. The athlete left his backpack crashing against the table with a thud, as if all the attention on him was not enough.

His shoulders looked broad and strong, even without the shoulder pad - the protective equipment used during football matches to soften the impact on the shoulder and chest. And the sleeves of the shirt were lifted, revealing his arms' muscles.

"Kim Jongin," the professor called, pointing in his direction with the white chalk on the board. "The sleeves of your uniform, please."

The boy watched him, seeming to consider. He stood for a couple of seconds, as if he didn't take any of it seriously. For a moment, Kyungsoo felt that his theory that athletes had a few neurons had just been proven, although, of course, it was obvious that the quarterback just wanted to make it difficult.

Finally, to give a checkmate to that unpleasant distraction of his bronzed biceps, the boy shrugged and finally tried to pull the sleeves of his shirt down. The crumpled tissue gave way around his arms, and he sank into the chair, stretching his legs.

Idiot, Kyungsoo thought.

The boy had barely realized he was shaking his head lightly, showing how much he despised all that. He just didn't expect Jongin to notice.

Kim stared at the board for a few seconds, frowning, then turned toward him.

"You must be Kyungsoo."

Shit.

If his glasses really made him look like a less appealing version of Harry Potter, as Minseok used to say, the small guy thought it very fair that he could hide under the invisibility cloak too. Because that was definitely the perfect time to disappear.

He stared at the other boy leaning toward him, his elbows now resting against his thighs.

"Very kind of you to notice." Kyungsoo blurted out because he did'nt want to sound stupid if he was slow to respond. After all, he added mentally, if you planned to expose my sexuality to the whole school, the least you should know was my name.

He shrugged.

"Yeah... I guess so. My name is Jongin."

This time it was Kyungsoo who turned to him, his legs following the movement of his body. They stood face to face, their knees almost touching.

"What are you trying to do, Jongin?" he asked, tempted to roll his eyes, but he just contented himself to take a deep breath and straighten his glasses.

"You're not very smart, are you? After what you've done to me, I thought it was obvious that I don't have the slightest desire to look at you."

"Hey, calm down, horn guy." he replied defensively, his lips extending into an amused smile. "I don't..."

"Calm down? You..."

"I don't like being the guy to give bad news, but..." Jongin pointed to the board, Mr. Kwon's handwriting in one side of it. Then he laughed, sinking into his chair. "Well, if we're going to work together from now on, you'd better get used to looking at my face."

Kyungsoo wiped his glasses on his shirt and put them back, as if that would help him to see better. There, half scrawled by the teacher's hurried handwriting, was his newest definition of nightmare. A list of pairings to assist the club's new students with the instruments.

A veteran and a freshman.

Do Kyungsoo and Kim Jongin.


	3. The Secret

Kyungsoo never thought he might one day be in the spotlight.

Now, however, the boy was everywhere: on the cellphone screen of the entire faculty, on the thousands of copies of the school newspaper spread across the murals, and especially on all those whisperings in the hallways as if it were a state secret. He was the school's favourite subject. Not in a good way, unfortunately.

"Ants, beetles and locusts." Minseok grunted that morning, on his way to the men's room. "I'll put all kinds of disgusting things in their backpacks, I swear to God."

"Don't worry about it." Kyungsoo replied with a shrug.

Glued on the bathroom mirror, one of Kyungsoo's endless posters announced "The gay boy from Yongsan High School." he frowned, reproving the image they had chosen to print on the initial page of the newspaper. That copy, however, still had a mobster's mustache drawn with a permanent pen, some black-painted teeth, and odd horns scrawled sloppily.

"Oh, God..." he released softly.

"I'm sorry, Kyungsoo"

But he didn't listen to his friend. He took a step forward, scrutinizing the work of art, then let out a choked laugh.

"Are you kidding me? I look great with that pair of horns!" he said, gesturing toward the scrawl."Why?" he turned to his friend, pretending to be outraged. "You think I don't look good with a mustache?" 

Minseok narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"I still want to kill them all."

"Sounds like a good idea to me."

"I mean... killing is a little too much, right?" he amended, hurriedly, trying to berate his dark side of a potential serial killer. The boy cleared his throat, then tuned his voice. "Minseok never ment to kill. Minseok only ment to maim or seriously injure."

Kyungsoo shook his head.

"I should never have let you borrow my Harry Potter books."

He glanced at himself in the mirror, adjusting his uniform tie while Minseok inspected each of the urinals, evaluating which one had a reasonable and less harmful amount of bacteria and germs. Probably the one with the least traces of pee.

"And, please, never speak about yourself in the third person again."

Kyungsoo added, as soon as the friend finished his great endeavor, leaning over the sink to wash his hands.

"Why not?"

"Because I have the need to squeeze your cheeks, and I'm not exactly the kind of guy that squeezes cheeks. Not even small children's. Especially if you just got close to one of the school's urinals." he frowned, glaring at his lopsided tie in the mirror. The thing was never in place. "And I don't want to act like an aunt with you, because that would be embarrassing, so just... don't do that."

Minseok laughed, splashing water at his best friend.

"Who would have guessed. Kyungsoo has a sweet side."

"I hope you rot in hell."

"A devilishly sweet side."

The sentence was followed by a pinch on one cheek, so exaggerated that it made the skin on Kyungsoo's face burn and his teeth appear under his full lips. In the end, the gesture didn't last long, because the boy seemed to want to end Minseok's life right there, without a trace. Massaging his own cheek with one hand, the small guy assessed his reflection in the mirror one last time before they left the bathroom.

This time, however, there was one more figure in the image reflected in front of him.

They were no longer alone. And that boy in the football team's jacket, with his hands in his pockets and brown hair falling strategically over his forehead, was definitely not good company.

"Hey, horn boy." the boy greeted, standing beside him and leaning against the sink.

Minseok looked around, just to make sure that Kim Jongin, the most popular boy in school, was actually talking to them.

And he was. Wow.

"What do you want?" Kyungsoo snapped.

Jongin shrugged unconcerned.

And his gaze unintentionally stopped in that newspaper glued to the mirror. Unfortunately. Because it took him a few seconds until his confused expression turned into an playful one and only a few more seconds until his eyes settled on his face.

"You look good with a mustache, horn boy."

"Cut the crap, quarterback." he mumbled shaking his head in disbelief. "What do you want? You're too old to know how to use the urinal without someone having to open your pants zipper for you, so enough with the talking and get right to the point. If that's not what you want from me, then what is it?"

He ignored it, pointing to the doodles.

"What's the problem with these people, anyway? The Godfather style isn't even fashionable anymore. If you ask me, I think you'd be better off with a mexican mustache. Or something more traditional, like Charles Chaplin. But you know what would be really cool? One of those walrus mustaches. "

Minseok finally seemed to have come out of his inert state and found the words.

"A walrus mustache would be awesome!"

Kyungsoo patted him on the back of his head. His friend was easily influenced.

"Don't listen to him, air head." And then he turned to Jongin, crossing his arms. "Listen, athlete, I..."

But the taller boy didn't even let him finish the sentence when he held out his hand.

"Give me your phone."

"What?"

"Your cell phone, half-pint."

The boy blinked a few times, stunned.

Even though he had seen Jongin several times on the field or walking around the corridors as if he were too good for the world, he never imagined that the quarterback could be so unbearable.

And impertinent, , to make matters worse.

Kyungsoo hated impertinent people.

Having received no reply, Kim Jongin just glanced at the boy's pants and slid one arm closer to his waist. Kyungsoo took a deep breath and felt his body freeze, relaxing only when he felt the other guy's fingers reach for the device in the back pocket of his uniform.

"Great, unlocked." he said simply, moving his fingers quickly across the cellphone's keypad before the other even thought of stopping it. Or tried to choke him. Or worse. "I saved my number on your contact list, and I sent a 'hello' on KakaoTalk. I hope you don't mind."

"Actually, I do care."

Again, Jongin paid him no attention. Just smiled and returned the cell phone, pressing it against Kyungsoo's chest.

"Friday, after class, at the music club."

Only in your dreams, quarterback.

But the words unfortunately did not escape his lips. He was paralyzed and gaping, still holding the cell phone against his uniform shirt. Jongin left the men's room with his All Star sneakers making a sharp noise on the floor. And all Kyungsoo could do was stare until the boy disappeared around the corner of the hall.

 

***

 

That week, Kyungsoo discovered that the spotlights didn't go off so quickly. But sometimes he could have a moment's peace. On Thursday the boy didn't receive any bad pick up lines in the hallways and that also meant he didn't reply any straight asshole's jokes with his famous "Sorry, man, but you're not my type". No invitation to give a casual interview to the radio club and no random questions from science-obsessed freshmen about how safe gay sex works. No student from the Christian club approached him this morning to try to pray out loud for his poor soul (which, it seemed, was already designed to burn in hell) and neither did they invade his locker to leave a bible in it. Something was very, very strange.

Maybe Minseok was right. Teens easily lost interest.

Nevertheless, over lunch, a girl in the book club asked if he could recommend a Oscar Wilde's work and then she seemed rather confused when he said he hadn't read any.

Kyungsoo ended up recommending the movie The Picture of Dorian Gray just to see if it make her leave once and for all.

The fact was, he was not the school's favourite subject anymore.

As he walked through the cefeteria, a name seemed to stand out in the midst of all those conversations.

From the table of the popular cheerleaders to the indie-rock listeners, the name Byun Baekhyun was prominent on the gossip groups.

Wendy, one of the school newspaper's most renowned columnists, was already on the run to find out information about the new student, scribbling some notes an her clipboard for the weekly news.

She was almost torturing Minseok with a pen when he arrived.

"Byun Baekhyun!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, almost in a theatrical way and pointed the object toward Kyungsoo as soon as she saw him approaching. "Good guy or villain? What are the secrets behind the arrival of the most famous player of our rival team, the Daewon High School? Is he coming in peace or planning revenge? Does he intend to participate in the selection for our football team or take a different course? Tell me what you know, Zac Efron lover.

Son Seungwan, better known by her pseudonym Wendy, knew everything about all the high school students. No one could let out a harmless fart in the locker room without the girl knowing about it.

When Lee Sungkyung and Nam Joohyuk announced they were dating, she had already known about it three weeks earlier. When the math teacher was planning a surprise test, the news were announced three days before and suddenly it was no longer a surprise. She probably already knew Kyungsoo's sexual orientation before he did.

She wrote the answers with agility, as euphoric and hallucinated by her work as Rita Skeeter in the fourth Harry Potter film trying to find out facts and gossip about the Triwizard Tournament to expose in the Daily Prophet. Taking into account the speed in which she could write, however, it was quite obvious that she did not need a Quick-Quotes Quill.

"She almost stuck the pen in my throat." complained Minsok, trying to get her off the table with weak strokes of his geometry book.

But she completely ignored all his attempts, leaning back again on the table, prepared to question the two of them until she discovered something.

"Any information is valuable." she continued, now tapping her pen lightly on her chin as if to think. "Criminal record? Resentful ex-girlfriends? Strong body odor in the armpits, foot odor or bad breath? Any evidence of congenital diseases? Some peculiar talent: belching the alphabet, pull a truck with the eyelids, stick the whole fist in the mouth or play two instruments with his nose at the same time?"

Kyungsoo blinked several times, still confused after so many questions.

"Well... He seem to hate the wide-receiver of our team, Oh Sehun. I heard they like the same girl since middle school. Once, at the final of the state championship, Baekhyun sewed his whole uniforme and Sehun spend about half an hour trying to undo it. They look like Tom & Jerry every time they see each other. It must be some sort of childish chase, I think. And at the last game it seemed like they would get into a fist fight at any second."

As he spoke, the girl combed her own hair and adjusted her glasses. It didn't have lenses, so Kyungsoo supposed they only served to lend credibility. When he finished, she shook her head frantically, making her messy bun even more disheveld.

"Oh, dear... Who do you think I am?" she said as if she was sorry for him. "If I didn't knew at least that, I sholdn't even dream of becoming a reporter. But maybe..." Suddenly she returned to her notes, writing furiously. "I didn't want to go that way, but maybe... I think this can work. Anyway, boys, thanks for the help!"

With a radiant smile, she hugged her clipboard and waved to the two boys, before moving away to the nearest table to pick up new information.

"She's kind of crazy." said Minseok, finally seeming to breathe in peace.

"I like her." Kyungsoo admitted. "At least she doesn't treat us like we're losers. And she was also one of the few people at this school who didn't call me gay boy."

"So, do you prefer horn boy?"

"Don't start, Minseok."

The feline-eyed boy looked at his sandwich, but didn't seem really interested in it.

"What does Kim Jongin want with you, anyway?"

"Besides making my life miserable?" Kyungsoo replied, picking up his Bibimbap kettle and putting a handful in his mouth. "Well, my teacher decided that it would be a good idea if the veterans helped the freshmen learn how to play the instruments, and I didn't have much luck when they selected me to babysit this guy. And, as you might imagine, he's the last person I'd like to deal with now."

"At least he's paying for his sins."

"I bet he's planning to destroy my consolidated career as an invisible and completely unknown guy." The boy rested his face on one hand, sighing loudly. "He must be formulating his diabolical plans right now."

Minsok craned his neck, trying to peek at the popular's table a few yards away.

"In fact, he's just drinking grape juice."

Kyungsoo winced.

"Ugh, he's a monster."

"A monster with good taste for juice, but a monster nonetheless." he agreed. "And what do you intend to do now?"

"And what do you think I should do? Besides, of course, avoid being in the same physical space as him as much as I can."

"You could, I don't know, plan something more Machiavellian, you know?" He propped his elbows on the table, gesturing excitedly and at the same time using a fake tone of naturalness. His right hand caressed an imaginary beard on his chin. "A basic revenge. Poison his juice. Tear off the uniform of the entire football team. Push him from the ladder. Write his name on Death Note. The usual things."

"I would never do any of those things."

Minseok shook his head in denial.

"You're too good for this world, Kyungsoo."

"Are you watching that weird cartoon again? The one with the rats that have psychopathic tendencies?" he replied, very seriously, staring at him as if he were a potential assassin. "I said watching Pinky and the Brain is not good for you."

Minseok laughed and stole a slice of the Bulgogi from one of the divisions of the homemade kettle (which, by the way, was extremely organized). He tried to say something, but the mouth was too busy chewing the meat making his cheeks look chubby.

Just a few seconds later, Kyungsoo's cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he knew that the discussion about Pinky and the Brain would stay for later. On the screen of the device, a message from someone named Kim Jongin blinked incessantly on his notification bar, seeming to cross the boundary of the real and non-real.

That did not seem to be happening for real. The most popular kid at school, and also the guy who spread his video to the whole school, was invading his life without even asking permission.

It only takes a few moments to change the contact name to idiotic quarterback.

 

Idiotic Quarterback:

Hi, horn boy.

I hope my number is still saved on your phone.

We have something scheduled for tomorrow. Don't forget.

 

Maybe writing his name on Death Note was not a bad idea, after all.

 

***

Jongin didn't imagine he would end the night with cucumber slices resting on his eyelids. Not in a million years. But there he was, lying on his best friend's bed with a white cream covering his face as they watched Clueless on TV.

And, as if that were not enough, he had to deal with Sooyoung repeating all the lines of the film. In just one dialogue, girl could be Cher, Tai and Dionne at the same time and still have motor coordination to file her nails. The situation got worse when she had the brilliant and utterly scary idea of getting Jongin's nails done.

"It's official," he shot a few minutes later, now chewing one of the cucumber slices. "You need female friends."

"If I had female friends, they probably would not eat my cucumbers."

"Joy Division." Jongin called her by the nickname, because he knew she hated it. "You're getting more and more mischievous. Should I worry? With whom are you learning to be sarcastic? We need to get rid of the bad influences."

She let out a mocking laugh, turning down the volume of the television with the remote.

"I think being the friends with the most requested quarterback in high school has its side effects. In fact, ever since we met in kindergarten, I've been praying every night that his stupidity wouldn't be contagious, and look where we are now... "

In your bedroom, he felt like saying. Watching a teenage cliché movie for the thousandth time while you're holding me hostage to test your new cosmetics.

"I didn't know that painting my toenails was included in the best friends package, but you should have warned me." He complained, lifting his legs high just so he could point to his fingers. "How am I going to explain this to the guys of the team now? If I had known that you planned to choose the pink nail polish, I would have undone our friendship in every social media."

"Jesus, Jongin, it isn't pink, it's star of light, and it's almost transparent."

"Come on." he complained. "You don't even believe that."

"You don't actually believe you will be able to hide from me what it was like at the music club either." Sooyoung countered.

The boy crossed his arms and adjusted his position on the bed, so that his feet rested against the wall and head hanging from the mattress, feeling the blood accumulate on his face. Jongin liked to do this whenever he needed to think.

"I already said." he murmured, and his voice lowered a few tones until it turned into a whisper. It was a very obvious sign that something was happening. It was like hanging a huge luminous sign on his neck saying 'I'm hiding something' and praying that Joy would not notice it.

"It's dull. Boring. Tedious. Weary. Preachy. How many synonyms do you need? "

But, after all, Sooyoung noticed.

"Have you... met anyone?"

"Are you worried you've lost your post to some girl that plays a saxophone?" he asked straight away, not wasting time when it came to perturbing his friend. "You know what I'm talking about." she said, then lowered her voice. "Your secret, you always avoid getting too close to people in fear that they would find out, so be careful. Making friends can be dangerous."

"I know."

She mimicked Jongin's position, moving her feet with her eccentric and contemporary socks from the works of art collection against the wall. Joy made the character of the three-quarters stocking of The Scream come alive and stir (and maybe even swing) while Tenderness played in the final credits.

"Would it be that bad if people knew?" she finally asked.

 

"I think so." The boy's response was almost a murmur. "When are you going to tell me what's going on?" Instead of an answer, all Jongin received was a disturbing silence. Her eyes were fixed on the wall and her feet with Edvard Munch's themed stocking no longer danced.

He decided to return the question.

"Would it be that bad if people knew?"

Sooyoung blinked a few times, looking exhausted and the already dry mask on her skin crinkled as she struggled to smile.

"Yeah, I guess so."

 

***

 

The music club seemed ever worse that Friday. Maybe it was the gigantic instruments scattered on the sides of the room or the inflated cheeks of the three nerdy boysplaying a less fun version of Despacito in their oboe out of tune. Jongin also suspected that the odd, crooked drawing on the board, wich looked quite like Sylvester Stallone after three strokes and an unsucessful rhinoplasty had something to do with it.

The boy had never believed in hell or stuff like that, but that little room hidden in the conter of the building looked a lot like it.

Jongin sat on his chair like somene sits on the reception room of Tartarus, waiting for the sentence of their eternal punishment. With his legs spread wide apart, he loosened his uniform tie, aware that Mr. Kwon was staring at him irritably as if he could no longer bear his taunts.

It was only a matter of time before the teacher gave up on him. After all, they all gave up one hour or another.

Mrs. Kang gave up trying to stop Sehun's furtive escapades over the patio walls on the tenth attempt.

The director gave up trying to educate Yifan's profanity vocabulary on the fifth.

Mr. Kwon had apparently given up on Jongin on the second.

"Okay, everybody! Let's separate and distribute instruments." he said, much more concerned about keeping away from the board so as not to stain his Terminator Salvation shirt than in calling the boy's attention on the rules of clothing. "In the next class we're going to start rehearsing for the games of this season, and then we can think about the spring ball. For now, let's just focus on trying to improve your experience."

While students were arranging to split the instruments and Jongin was obviously not included, Kyungsoo excused himself with an exaggerated bow and entered the room wearing a light blue sweater over his uniform, his backpack hanging from both shoulders, and his glasses slipping down the end of his nose.

As expected, he ignored the athlete completely before joining the other students across the room. Jongin almost felt compelled to send him a grumpy message on his cell phone. Almost. Instead, he just tossed his own backpack into a seat two tables away and stood up, jumping a few rows until he was standing next to the smalled boy.

"You are very lucky." he murmured, winking and sitting in the chair to his left. "I love people who play hard to get."

Kyungsoo didn't even look in his direction before answering.

"I'm not playing hard to get."

Jongin couldn't see his face clearly because of his glasses, but he was almost certain the boy was rolling his eyes. To be honest, he did not care. The less he had to deal with Kyungsoo, the better. The problem was that the quarterback needed him, and needing Do Kyungsoo, the reason he was fulfilling that punishment at the music club was like Joker needing Batman to save him from some trouble he created. A complete mess.

It was destiny tracing a dangerous and unexpected turn in his perfect game.

All the pairs around him were already grouped, alternating instead of using the instruments. The order was divided as follows: first those of wind, then the ones of string and, finally, those of percussion. But the young man beside him, oblivious to all this, just held the horn on his lap, very focused on the task of accommodating his fingers on the shiny and golden valves. He seemed to act as if Jongin simply didn't exist.

And the athlete hated and loved it at the same time.

"I don't know if you're aware of how this pairing thing works." he started, and stretched out one of his legs until he hooked her to the foot of Kyungsoo's chair, dragging it closer to him. "But it's usually an activity done by two people."

The smaller grimaced at the unexpected approach, seeming to abhor the short distance . When he turned his body to look at him, giving up on ignoring the brunette, one of his legs accidentally stayed between his.

"Okay, okay, we'll do it." he agreed, even though he did not yet seem a hundred percent convinced, Kyungsoo lifted his leg in a silent threat to Jongin's groin. "But, as you can see, I have the way clear to your weak point. Any smart-alec remark quarterback... just one and I swear, I'll kick your balls."

Even though he had his precious intimate parts under heavy threat, he could not help but smile at 'I swear I'll kick your balls'. Kyungsoo and his cute fifth-grade insult only made him feel even more determined to annoy him.

After a lazy explanation of the main parts of the instrument and teaching him some basic notes of the F-tuned horn, Jongin was able to absorb little more than a few lessons about the most appropriate lip pressure to be applied to produce to produce high or low notes.

When trying his luck with the instrument, however, he didn't go very well. And if Kyungsoo was thinking that he would stop teasing him, he was terribly wrong.

After some unsuccessful attempts, the taller boy leaned forward and lifted the corner of his mouth in a mischievous smile, whispering as if he were telling him a great secret.

"Did you know we just exchanged our body fluids through this mouthpiece?"

But the musician paid him no attention. He seemed obstinate to not get stressed with the athlete.

"Me, you and all the other students who put their mouths there before us." he replied, pushing the instrument back into the boy's mouth. "Now stop talking and do it right."

Jongin shook his head, finding the situation very amusing.

"You just ruined the mood after our first indirect kiss."

"I was serious when I said I would kick your balls." he assured him, threatening to raise his leg once more. "I hope you're not planning to be a father in the future, or..."

"Hey, hey. Take it easy." Jongin interrupted. "We barely talked about indirect kissing and we're already talking about children. It's not quite the way things work." He returned his horn, watching the boy squeeze his eyes behind his glasses, as if he were planning to curse him for the rest of his life and all his next incarnations.

"I think the horn is something more like you. We can try something easier, like a drum or a rattle. I always thought I had a certain talent for Latin rhythm, you know? Something more fun and exciting. More sexy."

It was quite apparent that Kyungsoo was hating every second of it. And he seemed to hate it even more when the quaterback raised an eyebrow at the word sexy.

In the end, Jongin didn't do well with the rattle or the drum. He also had no rhythm with the triangle, and now there were few options left. Not that he was worried about playing anything before the football matches. After all, he knew he would be released from his punishment during the games, but he knew that escaping extracurricular classes at the music club would not be that easy.

So when the class was over and all the students left the room, he followed all Kyungsoo's movements, from stashing the instruments they used until he threw the backpack over his shoulders and walked to the door. But if he was thinking that he would get rid of him so easily, Jongin could prove that he was wrong.

He was much more agile, reaching the exit before him and extending his arm in front of the door, blocking the passage. His biceps were at the level of his neck, and before even the smaller one could bend down and go under it, the boy also placed one of his legs in his path.

"Where do you think you're going, horn boy? We have something scheduled."

"We have nothing scheduled, quarterback. I thought I'd made that clear from the start. Besides, I have a meeting at the book club on Fridays. "

Kyungsoo tried to pass by him, but Jongin put his whole body in front of the door.

"You don't understand, half-pint. I have a deal with the director and I need you as much as you need me."

"What?" He laughed, leaning against the nearest door, finally giving up fighting the heavy body to get through the door. "I don't need you."

"Okay, maybe you don't need me, and I know this whole situation is not your fault, but I need you. And honestly I know this deal will be advantageous to both parts." he said, and now he was almost whispering, the soft voice trying to convince him once and for all. "Listen, I agreed to join the club as punishment, but I have only one condition to get out of it. I need to learn to play some instrument to get out of here."

"And what do I have to do with it?" Kyungsoo countered, folding his arms. 

The athlete just shrugged. 

"I thought you'd be happy if you didn't have to see me again."

The analysis of the proposal didn't take more than a few seconds, but for the two boys inside the music room, it seemed to have lasted a little eternity.

"Okay, you won." the smaller guy finally said. "I'm going to teach you. But not today."

"So we have a deal?"  
Jongin smiled, holding out his hand, but the boy simply ignored him. He took advantage of his distraction to break through the barrier of defense and walk through the door looking at him one last time before crossing the corridor.

"Yeah. I think we have an agreement."

As he gained distance, walking with silent and imperturbable steps out of the building, Jongin could only think of how Kyungsoo didn't seem to get upset so easy. His expression was always gentle concentrated or impassive, didn't matter how much he tried to tease him. 

He saw the light blue sweater disappear from view somewhere beyond the backyard, but his gaze remained fixed at a distant point, his mind wandering far from there.

Kyungsoo's barrier was definitely not as unshakeable as it seemed.

And now Jongin couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to actually get him mad.


	4. The Transferred Student

On that Monday, the only thing more important than the new edition of the school newspaper was the huge poster fixed to the mural.

Fighting space with invitations to the freshman welcome party, ads for the audition of the cheerleaders, and the faded copies of the main rules of the school, the big bold letters caught the eye of everyone passing through the corridors. Mainly from Baekhyun. 

The boy stopped in front of the mural, analyzing the graphic piece printed on glossy paper. The title read: 'Selection for the football team: freshmen. Next Tuesday at 5:00 p.m.' In the photo they chose to print the flyer, the Yongsan veterans crouched in front of the lockers in the men's locker room holding their helmets and displaying their broad shoulders with pride.

The slogan of the ad was highlighted in yellow, evidencing main the reason why all players enter the field, and at the same time, inviting their target audience to join them.

Be a champion!

In a matter of seconds , he plunged into very vivid and painful memories of the weight of that word. He could almost see his own figure running across the field for the first time many years ago. His sweaty hair, uncontrolled breathing, and friendly pat on his helmet every time he performed a perfect pass, and furious shouts every time he made a wrong pass.But it did not last long, and the images just faded before his eyes.

"I hope you're not thinking of signing up," said a mocking voice coming from behind, practically blowing the back of his neck. 

Baekhyun didn't have to look to know who it was. Not recognizing the enemy's own voice was an obvious sign of weakness, and he was not willing to be left behind on that move. Not when it came to Oh Sehun. 

"Are you afraid I'll be able to get in the team, wide-receiver?" He teased, watching the other boy approach and stand at his side, crossing his arms unaffected.

"I'm not the one who should be afraid." Sehun threatened, and his shoulders clashed defiantly. To anyone who saw from afar, the gesture might have seemed accidental or even a casual joke among friends, but both knew that this could not be further from the truth. "If you get in, I'll make your life a living hell. We don't go easy with freshmen on our team, shrimp."

Baekhyun faced the highlighted lyrics one more time.

Be a champion.

And again. Be a Champion.

Champion. Isn't that why he played every day? To become a champion? 

"I'll get in." he promised, more to himself than to his rival. 

"You're too confident for someone so short."

He smiled. 

"You have no idea, Oh Sehun."

They were silent for a few seconds, just observing the information attached to the mural. Baekhyun was the subject of one of the columns of the school newspaper in that week, although it was not as relevant as the scandal on the front page: 'Kim Jongin invades the girls locker room and accumulates one more warning for his collection.' along with a photo taken by one of the girls where the quarterback was holding some girl's clothes. He knew it would be that subject that was going to get the students' attention until next Monday.

One of the newpaper's columnists, Wendy, seemed determined to distort his image. The text didn't say much beyond the suspected rivalry between Sehun and Baekhyun, questioning why they still held all that quarrel, but he could read between the lines.

She wished to further encourage competition between them, and there was something implied that the new student is hiding something. And consequently that meant that the two boys would have to deal with a lot more looks than they were accustomed to.  
"I hope you're prepared to receive my passes." he finally mumbled, patting Sehun on the back. The boy let one of his arms rest on his shoulder as he returned the initial threat in a whisper "If you think you can make my life a hell, wide-receiver, I can't wait to see you try." Then walked away, but not without teasing the other one last time."Don't let me down." 

The hallway was already getting too noisy to bear. Baekhyun slipped his hands into the pockets of his uniform and began to walk, receiving bitter glances wherever he passed. As he put on the headphones and shut himself off from the world, muffling the noises of the other students, he thought that maybe he should finally acknolednge that he was the monster everyone thought he was. 

He was sick of lies, and that was a new place. That was the perfect opportunity.

It was his chance to start over.

***

The messages were already there, even before Minseok opened the chat.

 

Chameleon_81: 

Today I caught myself thinking of you. Again.  
Strange, right? I know it's weird to feel that way about a person I don't even know, but you kept wandering around in my thoughts all the time as I got back home. Maybe because I saw a cat on my neighbor's wall and it reminded me of your admiration for them.  
I just wanted you to know. You do not have to take it so seriously.  
Lie, maybe I want you to take it seriously.  
Take it seriously!!!!

 

He was on his way home when his cell phone started vibrating incessantly in his pocket. And now, just a few feet from the front door, he felt that his heart could explode at any moment. The boy didn't know if it was possible to feel it beating like that. So uncontrolled and so strong. Unless, of course, he was about to have a heart attack. He hoped not. 

With his legs soft as jelly, Minseok leaned his back against the garden tree and smiled. A smile so wide and involuntary that made his cheeks hurt.

 

Puss in Boots:

I'm taking it seriously!!!!

Oh, damn! I'm taking you very seriously.

I honestly think this was the gayest thing anyone ever said to me.

 

Chameleon_81: MAYBE BECAUSE I AM GAY  
God forgive me, but I'm SO gay for you  
ARGHHHHHHHH 

 

Puss in Boots: 

Hey, Mr. So Gay For You 

Wait a minute 

I'm going to my room 

 

Minseok didn't think he ever run so much in his life. Not even in elementary school games, where he was forced to run a marathon wearing the school sweater and almost had a stroke on the third lap through the gym. But he ran so fast upstairs, feeling his legs almost weaken on the last few steps, which must have easily beat the record of Usain Bolt, that Jamaican sprinter who had once seen on TV.

He dropped into bed with a weird urge to scream until he had poured out all that happiness, that seemed to burst from his chest like a electrical discharge. To avoid the embarrassing scene, and also not to worry his mother preparing the meal downstairs, he stuck his face in his pillow before opening the chat again. 

 

Chameleon 81: 

Was that a sexual innuendo? 

Just to let you know I've never done sexting before. 

I'm totally a virgin in that.

 

Puss in Boots:

Oh, so now we're talking about virginity? 

I'm great at this game. 

I'm a virgin in every possible way. No one can beat me. 

 

When she set up her Hornet account a few months ago, her priority was to lose his "virgin in high school" label once and for all. Minseok thought it would be easy to go out on a date with a guy and lose his virginity, as if it were a business agreement. A one-night stand. Just to be able to brag to his friends of the audio and video club that he was also cool enough to have casual sex like everyone else did. 

He didn't think he would get to the point of being emotionally involved with anyone. And, one way or the other, there he was, lying in his bed while all the symptoms of passion seemed very obvious even in the eyes of the most inattentive person of the universe. Whoever Chameleon_81 was, Minseok had fallen for him. 

It was that boy of secret identity who always listened to him when everything seemed about to collapse. Whenever he felt down, Chameleon was his safe haven; the person who never thought twice before holding his hand, even if metaphorically. 

 

But the great truth was that Kim Minseok was tired of metaphors. 

 

He wanted to hold his real hand. Whoever that guy on the other side was, he wanted to hug him and kiss him until he lost his breath.

 

He wanted to have a conversation that, for the first time, was not just digits in an app. He wanted to hear his voice. 

Sometimes Minseok would try to imagine what it would be like to comb his hair with his fingers, or feel his arms wrap around his waist. 

Because that anonymous boy was the undeniable cause of his most beautiful smiles. 

And Minseok was terribly in love with him. 

***

Kyungsoo never believed in romances. Especially those who started with letters being inserted through the cracks in lockers without anyone having seen the suspect's face. 

But that morning, there was a grizzled paper envelope lying in his pile of notebooks, and that sounded just like the kind of cliché he hated so much. He looked both sides of the hall before tearing off the sticker and slipping the letter out, as if in the middle of secret mission. No one else could know about it. 

No one until Minseok stood next to him with an arched eyebrow. 

"Have you received a love letter?" He asked curiously. 

"Jesus Christ! Kyungsoo grunted, automatically resting his hand on his chest to show how unexpected the presence had scared him. So dramatic. 

"Okay, you're so obvious. It's definitely a love letter. And it's Kim Minseok, for your information. I know I'm gloriously incredible this morning, but Jesus is a little too much for me." 

"Wow, you're so modest." 

Minseok made an exaggerated bow.

"Well, I try."

Kyungsoo again spying the folded paper in his hands, now a little more curious about the content. Was it really a love letter? Who in his right mind would like him, a boy wearing glasses, a ridiculous sweater of the uniform, and also played a horn in the high school band? He didn't see how a person could even contemplate going out with him. Not at all. 

Unfortunately, it was not a love letter. The boy closed the locker and let his back rest against the metal frame, letting out a slightly disappointed sigh. Yeah, maybe he was right. These things only happened in movies. Not that he expected a declaration of love in the Romeo and Juliet style, but maybe it would be cool to read an "I like you" from some secret admirer. 

In fact, the letter in his hands was nothing like a confession. It was an invitation, and a very suspicious one. 

Kyungsoo just tilted the paper aside so his friend could read as well.

 

Today, after the extracurricular classes  
Under the bleachers  
Come alone "

"It looks more like a threat." Minseok said, and Kyungsoo's eyes widened. "Like those little pranks nerds suffer on those high school movies."

"You think so?" he murmured worried. "Maybe I should go and see what this is...?" 

"You're insane!" his friend shouted, drawing too much attention in the hallway. When he realized he was drawing attention, he lowered his voice. "Kyungsoo, you're must be crazy. That's exactly how people die in horror movies."

"I think you're exaggerating." 

"I'm not exaggerating. It's always like that. It starts with a 'Come on alone do not tell anyone', then the stupid protagonist thinks that meet a killer somewhere in the dark is a good idea, and suddenly he is hit with a garden shovel in the middle of the stomach!"

Kyungsoo rubbed his abdomen, frowning. 

"Yeah, you're right. Maybe that's not a good idea." he said very serious, although he let a smile slip. "I hate gardening shovels." 

"Right?" Minseok smoothed his own arms, gritting his teeth. "They make me shiver."

They both laughed, putting their notebooks in the closet. Kim grabbed him by the back of his head as if to guide him down the hallway, and then they began to walk side by side toward the cafeteria, just as they did every day since they were in kindergarten. 

The row of the tray, as they liked to call it, was the only place of the school where the popular ended up mingling with the other groups of students. When it came to tossing over a shell of meatball soup or a more generous portion of pork chop with chives, it was sometimes almost inevitable that they would all remain united in that endless chaos.

Everyting was valid: flattering the ladies in the refectory, telling jokes, beg for compassion... Even the group of emos appealed to the famous Strategy of the Radiant Smile.

They were not so good at it, unfortunately. In that regard, the cheerleaders and the freaks in the theater club always had a better performance. 

Seulgi and Joohyun, the cheerleaders and also the school's queen bees, followed in front of them with radiant smiles and conquered twice as many spoons of rice and probably triple of salad dressings. Kyungsoo also suspected that Mrs. Jung would give more food to the boys in the book club because they were always skinny, so maybe he had some kind of privilege among the cooks (though he was not exactly skinny enough to fit in category Featherweight). That was the only explanation for getting an extra cucumber slice in his tray. 

And he was more than satisfied with his achievement. He really was.

Until he felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder.

"Hey, ma'am, can you pour some more soup for my friend here?" said a voice, accompanied by a smile that could make anyone's legs tremble. Except Kyungsoo's. "This half-pint will never grow up if he continue to eat like this." 

Kim Jongin. 

"Quarterback." Kyungsoo mumbled, but couldn't say anything else, because the older woman was already falling into the charms of the boy's smile and putting a scoop of soup on his tray. 

To his luck, the athlete didn't seem very willing to talk, and before he could even glare at him, Jongin was already walking away with his plate as he said "Thank me later." And to top it all off, he winked in his direction. 

A freaking wink. 

Minseok's face seemed to boil in irritation, getting fifty shades of red in just a few moments. He looked a lot like Anger, one of the characters in Inside Out.

"I can't stand this guy." 

"Even if he has good taste for juice?" Kyungsoo countered, playful. 

The friend shook his head in agreement. 

"Even so." 

"That's why you're my best friend." They both laughed, but Minseok's smile suddenly died on his lips. 

"Well, actually, I figure you're going change your mind in the next ten seconds... Forgive me, Soo, but I will not be able to have lunch with you today." he groaned, letting out a heavy sigh and pointing to a table on his right where three boys waved to him. "The guys of the audio and video club will hold an emergency meeting, so... You know what is like, right? The thing at the party ended up with a huge warning letter to us, even if the camera was mine and no one have nothing to do with it. The director kept my camera with her after your video... you know... leaked. And now we need to pretend we're the good Samaritans so she can give me back. 

Kyungsoo had to pretend she wasn't even slightly hurt. He had to pretend she didn't feel like Jack Dawson himself being drifted into the sea, freezing to death in the ocean, while Rose's loose figure filled the space above the floating piece of wood. The fact was that the Titanic was sinking before his eyes, and he just couldn't do anything. 

In the end, he just took a deep breath and tried to smile. 

"Okay, no problem. I still think you're a good friend." 

"Really?

"Of course." Minseok smiled and patted his arm. "Try not to end up with a garden shovel in the stomach while I'm away." 

Kyungsoo raised his fist in the air and pressed his lips, acting as the protagonist of some action anime, as if the two were part of a cinematic scene. 

"I'm going to try my best."

And Minseok responded by placing a hand on his chest, making a very convincing crying face. 

"They grow up so fast..." 

The truth is that Kyungsoo hated being alone. He hated the look of pity as he sat down without a companion at one of the cafeteria tables, the whispers, and the sense that all the other students were desperately noticing his loneliness, as if the popular had nothing more interesting to do.

The big disadvantage of having a single friend at school was to feel abandoned every time he got a cold, stayed home to help his mother or skipped classes to talk to the anonymous boy he met in a gay dating application last semester and had a huge crush. 

When that happened, Kyungsoo liked to isolate himself on the second floor, hiding in the bathroom near the infirmary. 

Sitting in the toilet with his tray resting on his thighs, he felt like Lindsay Lohan at the beginning of the movie Mean Girls. And he wasn't proud of it. 

However, that was a near-secret place. A refuge where he would never be bothered, unless someone had a vomiting or diarrhea crisis. The space inside the cabin was a thousand times cleaner and almost three times larger than the other bathrooms, mainly because it was designed for the use of wheelchair. It was the perfect hiding place to eat in peace, away from the questioning looks. 

But apparently, not all of them. 

As he picked up the last carrot, the hand that raised the vegetable froze only a few centimeters from his mouth. Under the door, Kyungsoo could see a pair of sneakers he knew very well. 

"Go away, quarterback." he murmured, pressing one foot against the door of the cabin, even if it was already locked. 

The sneakers got even closer. 

"Come on, half-pint. Open the door." 

"Can you, for God's sake, get out of here?" Kyungsoo snorted, trying to ignore the fact that Kim Jongin, for the second time on that damn day he seemed ready to ruin his life. 

What the quarterback didn't know, however, was that Kyungsoo was mentally taking notes and cataloging each of his actions as the good maniac for organization he was. It would be useful if one day he decided to actually buy a Death Note and write Jongin's name on it. 

Spoiler: He didn't buy, but he wrote the athlete's name in a text file on his computer called Black List of People Who Already Bothered Me At Least Three Times In Life. And Jongin was the only name in it. 

Seeing that the boy would not give up easily, Kyungsoo ended up grunting. 

"What do you want?" 

"Company for lunch," he replied, now practically glued to the door, punching weakly against the wood as he murmured "Please" with all the persuasion he had left. 

Jongin was doing it. He was using his best inocent and pleading tone. And he was good at it, the smaller one had to admit. 

Three points for Kim Jongin. 

"Are you kidding me?" he sighed, exhausted. "Are you telling me that you, the most popular guy in high school, have no one to stay with during lunch hours? Cut the crap, athlete. I will not fall for this. Forget about it."

For a few seconds, the men's room was silent. Jongin's shoes moved away from the door, but they didn't go far. Only four or five paces from where he was. Maybe six. He sighed, almost relieved, thinking that perhaps the boy had finally given up and gone away. 

But Kyungsoo couldn't even put another portion of rice in his mouth before hearing his voice again. He should have suspected that Kim Jongin never gave up so easily.

"You really want to do this the hard way, huh?" he asked, and the boy heard a sound coming from the cabin next to his, as if someone were climbing on the toilet. Shortly thereafter, Jongin's radiant face appeared up there. He rested his arms on the partition and smiled mischievously. "It's decided. I'm not leaving here until you're done. But don't worry, take the time you need. I can stay watching you eat all day." 

Minus two points for the insistence. And an extra point for the courage. Not that Kyungsoo was counting (but just between you and me, he was.) "

Has anyone ever told you that you are unbearable?" 

"Sometimes," he admitted. "But I prefer it when they say that I am incredible, or amusing." His right eyebrow rose and he smiled provocatively. "Or sexy. Sexy and probably my favourite." 

"Kim Jongin, you're the worst cliché I've ever met." 

"Does that mean you're going to let me have lunch with you?"

The smaller one took a deep breath, defeated.

"All right, but don't try any tricks." Kyungsoo warned.

"No tricks." he agreed cheerfully. 

Only a moment later the door to the cabin was unlocked. For the two teenage boys, sharing that space was a reasonably easy task as long as Kyungsoo sank into the toilet and Jongin kept his mouth shut. And everything was even simpler when the boy was busy chewing a piece of meat. 

The athlete, who sprawled with his back against the wall and legs stretched sloppily, sometimes let his shoes run up against the boy, and Kyungsoo could swear that he did it on purpose just to irritate him. From time to time their eyes met, but there was a certain indifference in the eyes of both, as if they simply didn't care for each other's presence. 

Surprisingly, Kyungsoo was the first to break the silence. 

"Have you really been banished from your table?" 

"I never said that I had been banished." 

That was true. One more point for Jongin. 

"What was it then?" 

"Did you read the school newspaper this week?" he asked, more like he was bragging than actually regretting something. The boy gestured with one hand in the air and his gaze was lost somewhere in the distance as if he were watching the big letters on a billboard positioned on the opposite wall. "Kim Jongin invades the women's locker room and accumulates another warning for his collection." 

Jongiu smiled and stared at him for some time, waiting eagerly for his reaction. 

"What are you waiting for me to say? 'Congratulations on being a loverboy' or something?" Kyungsoo mocked. "Dream on." 

"Yeah, sort of. That's what the guys on the team said before I got a suspension, at least. That's why I can't attend their meeting with the coach today. Now I am suspended from extracurricular activities and I will not be able to participate in the hazing of freshmen."

Kyungsoo was tempted to ask what was the hazing of the freshmen, but decided that it was not worth it.  
"Suspension of extracurricular classes?" It was what he decided to ask, a radiant smile winning his lips for the simple possibility of getting rid of Jongin. "Does that apply to the music club, too?" 

"Oh, wow. Don't look so happy yet, horn boy. He pointed his chopsticks to Kyungsoo, and then to his own chest, and the gaze of the small one was lost in the quarterback's unbuttoned shirt in a matter of seconds, where the white cloth had soaked with sauce. "You and I still have an agreement. Don't even think about running away from our private lessons. While the guys of the football team is making the selection, we'll both be practicing until I learn to play something, so don't make plans for tomorrow."

He just rolled his eyes and put an end to the bean sprouts. 

"Okay, okay, whatever. Let's get this over with." 

Carrying his now empty tray, Jongin got up and opened the cabin door with his foot. Kyungsoo remained seated in the toilet, no longer eager to eat the extra cucumber he had gained from Mrs. Jung. He had a stomachache just thinking about having to deal with that smug and irritating guy the next day. 

Before leaving the bathroom, the quarterback made sure to put part of his torso into the cabin again, all gallant. It was almost as if he were flirting. 

"Tomorrow I'm all yours, horn boy." Jongin said good-bye, smiling, and then he kissed the air, playfully. " Try not to get too excited."

He speaks as if it were a date, the small boy thought, irritated. 

And then he made a mental note on his imaginary score: 

Less than a thousand points for Kim Jongin.

***

Kyungsoo was curious.

Which, in fact, was not a quality to brag about.

Which, in fact, was not a quality he should brag about. Considering that his curiosity had already yielded a swollen ass of bee stings (and also that terrible Nicki Minaj nickname), a zero on a math test for snooping on the boy's drawing of Professor Lee at the next table, an erection in an improper place during the basics (this is even hard to explain) and having already fallen on a lake during summer camp, the fact is that being curious was more of a curse than anything else. 

Kyungsoo was curious enough to watch the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button just because it had the word "curious" in the title. Yeah. 

As he drove up to the football field that afternoon after school, tightening the shoulder straps of his backpack nervously and carrying that suspicious note he'd received earlier crumpled into his uniform pocket, he could only blame his ugly mania of sticking his nose into everything.

He blamed his curiosity. Of course. 

Kyungsoo approached the side of the bleachers as if he were approaching a crime scene. Slowly. In silence. Even kind of sneaky.

The only thing he could think about was the speech he would hear from all his friends (which, of course, was only Kim Minseok) and his family during his funeral, if he were actually running into the arms of death. 

He also made mental notes of beautiful, poetic and comforting things that he would probably write in a letter to the living if he were allowed to psychograph a message from the afterlife. Basic paranoia. 

Before he got any closer, he looked around to make sure he was not being chased by any crazy man armed with a garden shovel, and then sent a message to Minseok:

If I die, don't let them put flowers on the altar in my funeral.  
I'm allergic. 

The seats in the bleachers were leaked, just like in the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch in the Harry Potter films. The boy infiltrated underneath the metal frame, fighting against all that tangle of steel pipes, until he realized that there was a secret passage on the right. A single place where the path was free, following a few narrow, winding meters toward the center. 

With the last row leaning against the dark green wall, the space beneath the bleachers turned into an icy, muffled, and very suspicious penumbra. 

"Hey." Kyungsoo murmured, unsure, taking a few more steps around himself. "Is anyone there?" Having received no reply, he thought of turning his back and leaving. Someone should have written that note just to make him lose time of course. It was not like someone was actually showing up, right? But before Kyungsoo could follow the way back, a noise startled him, and he turned toward the noise. And, well... In horror movies, it was exactly in that part where the serial killer would appear to kill him with a somewhat singular object like a garden shovel or a chainsaw, for example. 

He heard footsteps. And laughter. And the sound of metal scraping against metal. 

As the silhouette of a boy approached him, the boy just squeezed his eyes as hard as he could and put his hands to his body to protect his stomach expecting for the worst.


	5. The Hazing

Kyungsoo's experience with horror films and horror stories was almost non-existent. Basically, his repertoire of scary things summed up to the fanciful tales he had heard from children in the third-grade scout camp, the trailer he watched from Annabelle: Creation circulating in social media (only the first twenty seconds) and the greenfacial mask his mother sometimes used to care for the skin. Because, believe it or not, it was quite scary. 

He did not understand anything about the genre, about serial killers or gardening shovels. But the boy knew one thing: going to a secret meeting was not a good idea, especially when someone's hand weighed on his shoulder seconds before he got ready to run. 

That was it. The end of time. Imminent death. Much slower and more painful than taking the ladder out of the pool so your The Sims character would drown. Way worse than that, for sure. 

He felt that his end was near. 

"Hey, you're Kyungsoo, right?" said an excited voice, wrapping his shoulders with an arm like longtime friends. 

Or perhaps not so near. 

"Yeah." he replied, still kinda lost. "That's the name on my birth certificate, as far as I know."

"You have a sense of humor. I liked it. The guys are going to love meeting you."

"Guys?" 

"The guys of the club."

"Club?"

"Yeah. Our president didn't say it on the note?" he asked, waving his arms, too excited for Kyungsoo's liking. "We have a secret club. The Gay Club. By the name you can see that it's not official, of course, but I guarantee our meetings are very nice. And we wanted you to come in because, well, you're gay and everything. I mean, not wanting to label you or anything, but what you said in the video about Zac Efron..." 

Oh God.

"Oh, no, no. I'm really gay." That was all he could say. "G-A-Y Gay. Just confirming. If it wasn't clear on that stupid video." 

"Damn it, Heechul, tell me you're not scaring the new guy. "another voice said from the shadows. 

Her name was Amber. He knew who she was. In fact, it was a bit difficult not to have heard about the capitain of the women's handball team. When she was on the pitch, she was known as La Muchacha del Diablo, and was also the first girl to refuse to wear her high school uniform skirt, fighting for her rights to wear pants. A true legend. 

"Heechul is always flirting. Don't fall for it. He takes anything he sees in front of him."

The boy shook his head. 

"That's true." 

When Kyungsoo noticed, he was surrounded by two more pairs of curious eyes. Huang Zitao, from the Kung Fu club, stood beside him and began to analyze him, as if he were judging him. The tall boy with deep dark bags under his eyes, wearing black over his uniform and with an eyebrow piercing made him step back, cornered. It was the same Zitao who had knocked down Minseolk on the first day of class. He would remember that later. 

And there was not only him, but also a tall girl - taller than average at least - with dark hair slipping over her shoulders and a plump pink tiara on top of her head. Kyungsoo knew her story. Choi Ren. In the last year of middle school, she still wore jeans, played for men's volleyball team and was called Choi Minki, her baptism name. 

But things completely changed in her freshman year. Minki let her hair grow and stopped wearing pants. She started wearing skirts, fake fingernails and changed her name to Ren. As much as she wanted to transfer to the women's team, she was forced to give up the club because people thought it strange that a "boy wearing skirt" was part of the team. Despite this, she had finally become who she had always dreamed of. Ren was happier sitting at the girls' club table than with the dirtbags of the volleyteam. 

When he nodded, she didn't say anything. Ren barely stirred nervously on her tiara and leaned her back against the wall. 

As far as Kyungsoo could tell, the group was made up of four very different students: a frisky pansexual, a cool tomboy, a gothic who fights Kung Fu and a shy transexual girl. 

"Kyungsoo, come with me." Heechul called, pulling him by the shoulders to the other side of the metal frame, pushing away his thoughts. They walked to an opening in the concrete, large enough for a person to pass. "I need to introduce you to our president." 

Unable to deny it, Kyungsoo just let himself be carried by Heechul's friendly shoves on his shoulders and Amber's voice murmuring "He'll be surprised" right behind them. On the other side of the passage, to his shock, there was a small room with colorful puffs, a threadbare sofa and posters of very different genres hung on the walls : one of Marilyn Manson, one of the Spice Girls and another one of the last world tour of Imagine Dragons. It was a cozy, quirky little room, though the smell of cement made him a little sick. 

The boy imagined the president sitting in a leather chair like a mobster, smoothing his dense, imaginary goatee as he wondered if he should officially accept him on the club or not. In fact, Kyungsoo didn t even know if he wanted to be part of such things as a Gay Club. But when Heechul suggested that they put a poster of Zac Efron shirtless on the wall next to the fridge, he thought it might not be a bad idea to make new friends. 

In a matter of minutes, no matter how crazy, he already felt part of that. 

"Ok, new guy." Zitao said, scratching the earring on his left ear. "Here comes our boss. Try not to look too surprised." 

Kyungsoo tried not to look too surprised. And failed. 

Failed miserably. 

Because, of all the people he could have imagined, that possibility had never crossed his mind. The president wore a ponytail, round-rimmed glasses, and a pink sweater over her cheerleader's uniform with a photo of Marceline and Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time. What were the chances that he imagined that girl, that girl of all people, was actually a cheerleader, nerd, lesbian and a fan of cartoons? "Hi, Kyungsoo," she said, all smiles. "Welcome to the Gay Club." 

The most popular girl in high school was right in front of him. 

Bae Joohyun.

***  
Sehun loved football. 

Watching the selection of freshmen always made him observe, half-absorbed, smiling at his own thoughts. Everything in that field was able to let him in a good mood in seconds. The smell of freshly cut grass, the players' panting chests as they ran, the ball slicing through the air, teamwork and determination in the eyes of the new students as they removed the helmets after an exhausting day of training. It was beautiful to see. The vivid sensation of adrenaline rushing through his veins, even though he was only analyzing the movements, it had always been enough to brighten his day.

But not that year.

Because this time he needed to be more attentive to freshmen, especially with Kim Jongin being banned from the hazing for getting in trouble again. He didn't have the captain to keep an eye on the newbies for him. He didn't have the captain to keep his eyes on Byun Baekhyun and his irritating passes. 

Irritantly perfect. 

"You have to admit, Sehun. The guy is good." Yifan said, sitting a row behind him in the stands. "A little small to play in defense, but unarguably good." 

Sehun snorted.

"He wouldn't last a week in our team."

"I think this is something we will only find out if he is on it."

"You are the captain's substitute today." recalled Yixing, the Chinese student sitting next to him, carrying a clipboard with the names of students incribed for the club. "You make the decisions here. Byun Baekhyun is in or out?" 

Out, he wanted to say. Because "out" was the only word that came into his head at that moment. But there was something bothering him. Perhaps it was the fact that the boy was really good, and he knew he couldn't leave him aside, as much as he wanted to see his expression of defeat when rejected by the team that once was his greatest rival; and that now, unfortunately, was his only hope. 

He didn't want to see the damn smug smile on Baekhyun's face again. However, as the pair of eyes watched him intently waiting for an answer, he knew there was no other way.

The Yongsan High School team needed the best. And the Byun might be the champion they needed. 

"Right." he grunted, finally rolling his eyes and crossing his arms on his chest as the linebacker removed his helmet after knocking out another guy twice his size. "The shrimp is in." 

But that doesn't mean I'll go easy on him, Sehun thought. This was just the beginning. And the wide-receiver was prepared to test Byun Baekhyun's limits at any price. How long could a guy like him last, anyway?

With any luck, he might last the rest of the day.

Or, perhaps, with a lot of luck. 

As the last evaluated boys pulled off their helmets, their t-shirts and shoulder pads, seeking some relief as they lay on the grass, the sky was already darkening, though the sun was still lying lazily behind the mountains on the other side of town, tinging the horizon with orange. It was a beautiful view. Sehun almost allowed himself a smile. 

But it was just the beginning, and the most fun part was yet to come. Yixing finished scraping the names of the unclassified students for the team and Yifan hit his helmet against the fence that separated the field from the stands, catching everyone's attention, but it was the substitute captain who gave the instructions. 

"Enough of rest!" he shouted, clapping his hands. "Lay, our best running back, will call the names that have been selected for the team. The official t-shirts will only be distributed after the hazing, so this means that you are still under evaluation. Now lift those lazy asses out there! I'll see the lucky ones in the locker room." 

After a few grunts, the boys stood and lined up, waiting for more orders. Baekhyun was the last to obey the command, he noticed. His resistance to following the rules would surely be a problem. But what mattered was that he was there, waiting for the results as much as all the others, his fingers tightening around his helmet in anticipation. 

When the name of Baekhyun was called, the linebacker followed to Yifan and Yixing to pat them on the back in thanks. Sehun couldn't keep up with his movements, because fortunately he was already walking toward the building before the call was over. So he wouldn't have to deal with the small guy so soon. 

Or that's what he expected. 

Alone in the locker room's muffled hallway, he opened his locker, number 94 like his shirt, and pulled a coat off, putting it on his shoulders. If he was willing to spend a night inside the school, having to keep up with the freshmen in the planned activities, he had to be at least warm. He knew how cold it was at night, especially at dawn. 

Sehun closed the locker and sighed, leaning one arm on the frame, his head tilting unconsciously until his forehead was against the icy metal. If Kim Jongin were there, he wouldn t have to make all the decisions alone. And he wouldn't be responsible for the person he hates the most for the rest of the night. Damned quarterback and his tendency to get into trouble. At least he was paying for it by attending that music club with a lot of nerds.

He punched the locker just as a freshman entered the locker room.

"Wow" the boy grunted. "So nervous... You should at least look happy to have me on the team." 

Byun Baekhyun.

The new team member, at least for the moment, went to one of the seats and dropped his helmet there, took off his shirt and before he could get rid of the shoulder pads, took a few slow steps toward him, close enough that the wide-receiver would notice sweat dripping down his forehead and the side of his neck. 

"Will you not help me get it out, teammate?" 

The 94 shirt guy swore he could punch him right there, if the other freshmen were not coming. 

"I hate you." 

"That's great, Sehun. Because the feeling is mutual." 

And when loud, muffled voices came from the other side of the door, echoing in the hallway, Baekhyun took off the rest of his uniform on his own and picked up a new T-shirt, moving in the opposite direction with a satisfied smile on his lips. A smile that he hated more than anything. 

That would be a long night.

Sehun would definitely make sure of it.

***

Jongin wanted to be anywhere else in the world. Especially in the field, playing football or watching the selection of freshmen. Or even on the hazing, because although he hated most of the activities, that was the most fun thing at the beginning of each year. It only lost to the camp of the season games, probably. 

The fact is that he could be anywhere else, but was there walking through one of the hallways of the school during the early evening and having his freedom dependent on a nerd with Coke-bottle glasses. 

He was walking a few steps ahead of Kyungsoo, twirling his keys in his fingers as he heard him snort and grumble behind him. 

"Are you sure this is safe?" The boy asked, perhaps for the hundredth time that day. 

"Of course not. If it were safe I wouldn't need illegal key copies so we could break into the room. But calm down. I've done this at least a thousand times. Nice boys like you don't take the blame for what boys like me do." He threw the metal objects up and down with just one hand, before finally inserting one of them into the lock of the music room. "Besides, we're here to rehearse, right? It's an illicit strategy for a harmless act. It's completely understandable."

Jongin could swear he was rolling his eyes, even though he couldn't see him. 

"Say that when you get expelled, quarterback." 

The room was at the opposite end of the field, so they would be at a reasonably safe distance to rehearse in secret. Jongin didn't want anyone to see him stuffing a horn into his mouth. 

"Relax, half-pint. It will work." 

"Just as it did when you got a suspension in sixth grade for droping your friend Sehun's math book in the toilet?" 

Jongin shrugged. 

"We sort of fought."

"The same way it worked when you got caught kissing a girl in the infirmary and had to become Dr. Nam's assistant for three months?"

"Yeah, it wasn't a clever idea, but..." 

"The same way it worked when you glued four-eyed-Jongdae's ass in his chair?" 

"Okay, that was not cool. But I already paid him a new pair of underwear."

"The same way it worked when you recorded that stupid video and posted on the internet, and was forced to join the music club? Or when you invaded the women's locker room and were forbidden to join the hazing of freshmen?" Kyungsoo sighed, dropping into the chair by the window. "My God, you have no idea what you're doing! How could I relax?" 

Jongin didn't want to talk about the video. He couldn't talk about the video, so he only had one way out. That, modesty aside, was amusing. 

The room had with the lights off, because they couldn't take the risk of drawing much attention, but the light coming from the windows cast blue shadows over the impatient expression on Kyungsoo's face. The boy took off his pack from his back and left it lying somewhere on the floor near his sneakers. Maybe that's why he didn't notice the athlete, who was slowly approaching the table where he was and leaning his hands on it, leaning exaggeratedly toward him. 

"So... You've been noticing me, huh?" 

Kyungsoo seemed about to explode. Of anger, maybe. Or maybe shame. He couldn't tell. 

"It's impossible not to notice you, especially when your ugly face is on almost every front page of the school newspaper circulating around here." he replied, taking a deep breath."I would need to be blind not to notice the handsome quarterback and his excessive popularity."

Anger, for sure. 

For some reason, irritating the small guy was one of the favorite things to do in his life lately. He liked the idea of having to deal with someone who didn't fall into his charms. Not so easily, at least. 

"So... that means you've been watching me." He practically whispered, smiling. "And you think I'm handsome." 

Exhausted, Kyungsoo messed up his hair in annoyance and that made his glasses lopsided.

"You will be shocked, but listen... The world doesn't revolve around you and not everyone is willing to lick the ground you walk on. Not every human being on the planet is interested in gossip about you. Some people actually read the school newspaper." 

The statement didn't hurt him. He was accustomed to having all the school at his feet, that was true. The boys always patted his shoulders in the corridors and the girls always sighed or whispered behind him, filling him with compliments. Sometimes it was great to have a little attention. Other times, however, he felt a little suffocated. 

To know that Kyungsoo didn't care about his popularity was, at the very least... interesting.

"Nerd." he replied at last, shaking his head in denial. 

The boy remained impassive, unaffected. It was as if nothing could get to him. 

"Now enough talk, athlete. Let's rehearse." 

On the outside, lights flickered almost aimlessly, from one side to the other. In the distance, Jongin could hear the muffled sound of voices and laughter. He could almost imagine the sound of footsteps dragging against the rough floor of the path leading to the football field and the lanterns that guided the group of young boys across the darkness, as in his first year of high school. 

The hazing, he acknowledged. But it was too late to think about participating. 

"Well, if we're going to rehearse with these things," Jongin pointed to one of the wind instruments on the side of the room. "We'd better stay away from the windows. The guys of the team seem to be coming in this direction." 

Kyungsoo looked back into the gloom of a ghostly courtyard on the other side of the tall, rectangular window. His eyes stayed there for some time, and then the boy twisted the white knob, giving a little shove for the structure to give way. With the little slit now open, they could hear more clearly the sound of screams, followed by laughter and stumbling footsteps across the lawn, a dangerously close distance from there.

"Today is the night of the hazing, right?" he asked, looking slightly interested. 

Jongin chuckled. 

"Are you curious?" 

"Dream on, quarterback." 

Quarterback. That word again. 

He was always proud of his title, mainly because his position was the most sought-after and envied on the team, but when the short guy said it, it was always full of mockery and contempt, as if it were nothing special. Nothing to brag about.

"Are you doing this out of revenge?"

"This what?"

"This." he said, gesturing toward him. "You're avoiding saying my name."

Kyungsoo shrugged.

"Just as you avoid saying mine."

"Touché, my dear horn boy." 

But when the sound of a body falling into the water spread through the room, from somewhere far away, the boy could no longer hide how much he was interested in what was happening. Whatever that was, Kyungsoo seemed curious to see with his own eyes. 

He looked one last time through the open window, and then closed it again. 

Surprising the boy sitting in the chair and even himself, Jongin was the first to get up and pick up one of the instruments on the other side of the dark room. He took a long flute and a metal triangle accompanied by a drumstick because he thought it was an easier and faster way out. 

He needed to learn how to play some instrument, no matter what. 

The athlete sat in a chair in front of Kyungsoo, so that he stood face to face with the boy, resting his elbows on his desk. 

"Let's do it this way." he proposed, an arrogant smile appearing on his lips, making dimples appear on his cheeks. "I'm going to sit here, you're going to teach me to play one of these things, and we'll finally be able to get rid of each other. And if I make great progress tonight, I promise to take you to watch the freshman hazing. 

Kyungsoo's thick eyebrows almost joined in his forehead. 

"You must be kidding." 

"No, I'm not. This is serious. It's a promise." 

"Do you really think I'd be interested in anything that you athletes do?" he asked, holding Jongin's gaze with his serious expression. By the arched eyebrows on the quarterback's face, however, it was very clear that the boy didn't believe a word of what he said.

"Well, I think so." 

Kyungsoo pressed his lips together thoughtfully.

"Are you really going to sit there for at least an hour and really try to rehearse something? No tricks? And no grumbling?"

"I will, I will." he promised, holding up his hands in surrender. "So... do we have a deal?"

Jongin knew he was getting into many deals related to Do Kyungsoo in the last few days, but he couldn't just take it back. And maybe, just maybe, his chance to attend the freshman hazing had not been completely lost. He could do that. He could behave for sixty minutes without teasing him and forcing his last healthy neurons to learn to play a damn instrument, couldn't he? 

He knew he couldn't risk getting this close to anyone, especially Kyungsoo. Ever since the video incident, it was as if he felt somehow responsible for him. And the more he tried to pull away, the more he was drawn to that whole mess, plunging deeper and deeper. 

He couldn't take the risk, but there he was, making new plans and new promises with someone he didn't get along at all. A boy who wasn't even his friend. A nerd who played on a dull band and it was nothing to him. 

And Kyungsoo, though visibly hating him with all his strenght, didn't seem to think it was a bad idea. 

"Yeah." he agreed, sighing loudly. "I think we have deal."

***

With a blindfold, Baekhyun could barely walk on the slippery floor without stumbling. He heard laughter, footsteps, and whispers. From time to time he felt unknown hands guide him to turn left or right, holding his arm to help him up some stairs and pats on the shoulders forcing him to stop. If he looked down, he could see lights dancing on the floor. It was all he could see, even though his own sneakers seemed blurred in his tired sight. 

A few minutes earlier, after that exhaustive selection, he hadn't imagined that he and the rest of the freshman group would be blind-guided by the school. It was already night, and the quieter the route was because they couldn't take the risk of being caught there at that time, more the linebacker believed that some of them were falling behind. 

The number of steps gradually diminished, and this became more and more obvious as time went by. 

"Right, now I'm taking this group with me." he heard a voice whisper, just before being grabbed by the shoulders. "In silence, shrimp." 

And he recognized the voice of Oh Sehun. 

Baekhyun felt the taller body walk behind him, his breath against his ear every time the with the 94 shirt let out a muffled chuckle. Beside him, other boys also moved, stumbling forward. More stairs and he was forced to cling to the handrail to get to the end, heart beating with anxiety for what was to come. 

"All right, people! Those who have come here can take their blindfolds. And if you ended up staying in my group, then I'm sorry, because I don't take it easy on newbies. You better be ready." 

Baekhyun smiled anxiously, then ripped the blindfold off. They were in the pool area. It was already night and the poles were on, casting lights and shadows on the faces of the boys.

"I'll explain how this hazing thing works. It's an introductory test we do every year with the freshmen. Do you see the dart game up there?" He pointed to a circular target mounted on a vertical surface. A big wooden board, probably. "Well, you're going to throw the darts, and whoever hits the center is free of the hazing and will be automatically in the team as a titular player." 

Some boys clapped and shouted enthusiastically. Baekhyun only had time to observe the satisfied expression on Sehun's face to realize that it wouldn't be so easy. 

"But..." he added as soon as the newcomers calmed down. "If you think it's going to be easy, forget abou it. You will be blindfolded during it. And your hazing will be chosen according to the section you hit. Closer to the center, tasks are easier, and get harder on the outer parts. If you hit the red or green parts, you have a choice. If you don't hit any part of the target, I'll choose for you, understood?"

"Yes!" the boys shouted in chorus. 

Baekhyun just shook his head, finding everything very ridiculous. 

No matter where he hit, he knew Sehun wouldn 't make it easy for him. The wide receiver had promised to turn his life into a living hell, and one thing Byun was sure: Oh Sehun was a man of his word. During elementary school, they both had promised to do their best to win Bae Joohyun's heart, and this was a promise he'd been keeping for years. 

The first boy wasn't very lucky. He missed the target completely, and was forced to stay five minutes with an insect inside his underwear. The poor fellow gave up missing a minute and a half. He was the first to lose the initiation test. 

Two boys who were playing in attack were able to hit a red section, even without being able to see it, and had lighter punishments, such as doing push ups with one hand or sing the national anthem while doing jumping jacks. It was fun to watch the challenges, Baekhyun had to admit. But he was sure that no matter what happened there, the next day, all the embarrassing chores would be on the school newspaper's website, the Drop That gossip blog, because Wu Yifan was there to shoot every second of it. 

"Wow, you're really good at this." said the chinese to his friend, chuckling as he aimed the camera at him. Now, Sehun was sitting on the back of one of the boys, as if doing fifty pushups was not difficult enough. "You were creative with the pranks this year, and the newbies really look scared. Jongin will want to kill you." 

"Jongin is too busy at a music club full of nerds to complain." he replied, mischivous. 

The next in line, a small boy who had an almost magical hand for long passes, ended up hitting a yellow section entitled "homeless" and his mission was to ask for money in the streets of the neighborhood telling a funny story and nothing believable until accumulating ten thousand wons. He never came back again, so Byun figured he was out too. 

When it came his turn, Sehun himself put the blindfold on his eyes and laughed behind him, pushing him until he walked a few steps ahead. The night was cold and the air condensed around Baekhyun's mouth as he raised his arm to throw the dart. His uncovered arm trembled with cold, nervousness, adrenaline. All at the same time. 

He only had one chance. Only one chance. 

When he got ready for the launch, the boy couldn't see anything but darkness. He took a deep breath, bent his knees to gain stability, and moved his arm forward, trying his best to keep it straight. 

Baekhyun finally threw the object, letting the air out through his mouth and hpoing for the best. But instead, the worst case scenario happened.

And the metal dart made a loud noise when it hit the ground.


	6. The Dirtiest Move

For Baekhyun, losing was never an option. 

From a very young age, his movements and attitudes have always been very well calculated, every step, every word, every wrong action at the right time and every right ation at the wrong time. Even the jokes that gave him days of detention and warnings had a purpose. 

His life was like entering the field. Each move was planned to win. But there, still blindfolded and in front of the other freshmen and Oh Sehun, his arch-enemy, he felt everyone's gaze weigh upon him. And maybe for the first time in his life he didn't know exactly what to do. 

He had no plans. 

If he were running on the football field, a slip could jeopardize all his efforts. It could harm his entire team. That was how he felt there. Naked, as if everyone could see his weaknesses. 

After a defeat, there is a time when all the players gather to bathe in the locker room, sometimes in silence, sometimes arguing with each other to put the blame of the defeat on someone. At that moment, Baekhyun felt he was the one to blame. His shoulders weighed as the dart hit the ground. 

He had not planned for it. 

But every now and then some improvised actions were able to save an entire team and make the hopeless crowd thrill. That's what he decided to hold on to. To the taste of a victory that came with difficulty, sweat and tears. He knew better than anyone how that kind of miracle was possible. 

Because, after all, no one dares to play a game that has no chance of winning. 

"Byun Baekhyun, one step ahead." said one of the guys. It was not Sehun's voice. Probably the big guy, Yifan. 

But the laugh that followed, mocking, out of the back of his throat, was clearly his. The boy felt long, icy fingers touch the back of his head and lay lightly on his skin, even before he could remove the blindfold. 

"Don't take it off yet, shrimp. I think it's going to be more fun like this. "Sehun whispered, and laughed in his ear. "In the dark." 

"Just get it over with." he replied, taking the caution of moderating his tone. Baekhyun didn't want that phrase to sound like he was begging. No way. So he got rid of the wide-receiver's grip with a shove and smiled, unaffected. "Or did you give up your promise not to take it easy on me?" 

"Freshman, you didn't hit the target," Yifan explained, to Baekhyun and all the newbies around. "That means we can choose your punishment. It was one of the rules of the hazing we said earlier." 

Some whispering and sarcastic comments escaped from the small group of curious freshmen, but Baekhyun wouldn't listen. Regardless of the embarrassment he was about to go through, he decided he would bear it with a smile on his face. 

"You can choose to leave now or ..." Sehun began.

"Bring it on." he interrupted, taking a step toward him and opening his arms provocatively. " I'm all yours."

"Let's see if you're going to keep all the mockery after that." The guy with shirt number 94 started a slow walk around him, surrounding him as if he was a predator on the prowl of his prey, ready to attack. And, to a certain extent, it was just how Baekhyun felt: cornered. The boy could almost feel the other boy's breath touch his face as he circled him slowly. "Well then, shrimp. Take off your clothes." 

"What?"

He heard laughter. A lot of it. But the one he most hated for sure was the one that escaped Sehun's lips. 

"Are you deaf, Byun? I told you to take off your clothes." 

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow, understanding his move. 

"Do you want to see my ass that much, wide-receiver?" 

"I just want you to swim in the pool. Naked." he said, and then added "Come on, it's not that hard. Even an idiot like you can do something so simple." 

Baekhyun let out a humorless laugh and brought his fingers up to the waistband of his pants. If that's what he wanted, that's what he would have. He didn't think twice before opening the button, pulling down the zipper and pulling the pants down his legs, even though he felt all eyes burning on his body. Being blindfolded only made everything a thousand times worse. But the former linebacker of Daewon High School was not ashamed of his physical form. 

On the contrary: Baekhyun liked to exhibit it. 

He got rid of the T-shirt more slowly than necessary, smiling when he realized that Sehun muttered something, probably hating that his shot backfired. Because Baekhyun, in the end, was even having fun. 

"Why do I feel like I'm watching a striptease show?" asked one of the freshmen, laughing. 

"Putting Careless Whisper to play is the only thing lacking." another said. "Where are the music club's losers with a saxophone when we need them?" 

He also heard Sehun whisper to Yifan: "Kris, hide his clothes." and all those noises of photos being taken on the cell phones. There were flash lights reflected in his chest, the only place he could vaguely see with the blindfold if he looked down and shouts echoing in the pool area encouraging him to continue his punishment. He heard more clicks, more flashes and more laughter. 

He was being filmed. 

Baekhyun stopped, now only in his underwear covering his intimate parts, and then he held out his hands, as if to say: What more do you want from me? 

"The underwear, Byun." Sehun ordered. It was almost as if he was reading his mind. "Take off the underwear too." The transferred boy felt his breath condense around his mouth with each breath. The night was getting colder and colder, and his bare skin was chilled in the icy air. Shivers ran through his entire body, only to think of having to dive into the freezing water of the pool, already aware that everyone would be leaving soon. They would flee with his clothes and leave him there, alone. 

Sehun was five years old or what? 

This time, he was faster. He pulled his underwear down his thighs to his feet and then kicked it to the side, feeling the thing between his legs get a little shy. It was humiliating. Totally humiliating. Because it was cold, the wind blowing almost looking glacial, and everyone knew that certain parts of a boy's body "shrink" when exposed to low temperature. 

It was a very, very dirty move. 

But it was not the worst. When he thought it was over, he heard the wide-receiver ask one of the boys to bring him a bucket. And less than a minute later, after rumblings and more small laughs, his chest was hit by something rubbery. That, whatever it was, exploded on his bare torso. His fingers touched the abdomen, feeling a liquid drip into his skin. 

Paint, he noticed by the smell. The liquid was paint. 

Party balloons loaded with paint of the most diverse colors were sent towards him, by the veterans as well as the freshmen. One of them hit his face, and he's never been so grateful throughout his life for wearing a blindfold. The ceramic flooring around his feet was sticky, wet and colorful as a rainbow of a grotesque combination. 

As if that were not enough, someone pulled him by the shoulders until he stood by the pool. And then he was pushed. Finally, after minutes of complete darkness, he got rid of the blindfold. When he came back to the surface, the first thing he saw was Wu Yifan, squatting near the edge with a cell phone in his hands. 

"Smile, Baekhyun." said Kris, the tight-end of the team. "You're on a live stream. To the whole school."

***

After an hour of rehearsals, cheeks aching from the blow and a lot of headache, the two already knew that would lead nowhere. 

Mainly because Kyungsoo had already given up trying to teach him to play the horn, and now appealed to the triangle, instrument that he, the modesty aside, could easily learn after watching a video of a minute and fifty-two seconds on YouTube. 

The problem is that Jongin's promise to sit quietly, without fooling around and striving to learn to play something was already a distant reality. 

As always, the athlete was a mess from head to toe. His school uniform was wrinkled, his hair disheveled and his red tie crooked around his neck. Kyungsoo had lost track of how many times his gaze had lost in his collarbone as Jongin leaned forward on the table. 

And right now, with the quarterback's skilful fingers undoing the first two buttons of his shirt and getting rid of his tie, it was a bit difficult to concentrate. Almost by accident, his eyes have come down a little more, stopping at the golden chest visible beneath the white cloth.

"Can you please stop taking off your clothes? We're in a life-and-death situation here." 

The boy smiled mischievously. 

"Am I distracting you?" 

Kyungsoo wanted to laugh, but simply raised an eyebrow and put his glasses on the table, looking away. 

"Why would I be distracted?"

"I can see the way your body freezes when you look at me," he said, opening another button on his shirt. "Like now." Jongin laughed, sank into his chair and pulled the collar of his uniform so that the skin of his torso was even more visible, obviously trying to tease him. "It's okay, you can look. I don't care."

In a quick gesture, Kyungsoo lifted the triangle and put his arm back as if to throw it at Jongin's head at any second. But the brunette was faster, and before he could even think about hitting him with the metal instrument, the boy raised his hands, pacifier. 

"I'm only kidding!" He defended himself. "My God, you're so stressed."

Kyungsoo used to be a patient boy. Nothing had ever affected him as directly as the annoying Kim Jongin was affecting him now. He had never exploded with anyone before, not even when Jihyo had stuck a chewing gum in his hair during fourth grade and he was forced to shave it; or when he and Minseok had been victims of a disgusting sequence of spitball shots on the first day of class, and not even when that video of him saying in all letters that he was gay and worse: that he had (has) a crush on Zac Efron had become the most talked subject of the school at the beginning of the year.

He was patient. He really was. But that night, he discovered that his patience had a limit. And that limit had name, surname and coincidentally it was the most popular boy of the school. 

Kyungsoo threw his backpack on one of his shoulders and walked towards the exit, forgetting his glasses on the table. He stopped in front of the door, preparing to say everything he was holding up. He felt that he would go mad if he didn't say something. 

"God, you are unbearable! I don't know what I was thinking when I thought this was a good idea." 

Jongin was already going after him, both of them standing in the ghostly hallway. 

"Technically, as far as I remember, you never thought it was a good idea." Jongin sighed. "I don't think either of us thought so. That's a bad idea. But it's a better idea than having to stand each other until the end of the semester, don't you think?" 

"We're already having to stand each other now." 

"Okay, you have a point. And I know it sounds hard now, but it can get even worse. I just need to learn how to play an instrument. Just one, and you and I will be free."

 

"Yeah. About that..." He made a face. "I have bad news."

"And what would it be?"

"If you can not even learn to play the triangle, I don't think you can learn to play anything. Unless there is a miracle, you and I will continue to have to deal with each other, but at least we can do that by maintaining a healthy distance. In totally opposite corners, to begin with."

The athlete laughed, lifting only the corner of his mouth. Before Kyungsoo could move away, he leaned his arm against the wall beside him. 

"Maybe it would be easier to teach me something if you were not so busy feeling attracted to me." 

"Maybe it would be easier to teach you something if you stopped trying ti catch my attention." he answered. 

Jongin raised an eyebrow. 

"So you admit it? Are you really attracted to me?" 

Feeling cornered was a novelty in Do Kyungsoo's dictionary. He didn't understand where the destructive power that the boy's gaze had on his body was coming from, but he had to admit that this kind of approach could paralyze him in a way. He felt and followed every movement of Jongin's eyes, going down his jaw and concentrating on his neck, the Adam's apple that rose and fell every time he swallowed. 

With the weight of all that attention on him, the words stayed trapped in his throat.

Only in your dreams, quarterback. 

But for a few seconds of tension, Kyungsoo lost his voice. How he had lost his voice in the third-grade talent show after trying to sing a Beatles' song in front of a crowd of disinterested parents and bleary-eyed students. They were alone now, but the feeling of not being able to move his legs was the same. The only solution was to get out of there as quickly as possible. 

He took a step forward, planning an escape and maybe a kick between Jongin's legs as a bonus. But the move didn't go as planned. The small one ended up with one of his legs between the athlete's, stuck, and the boy continued to watch him, a hand now playing with the collar of his uniform. It was as if he was fully aware of how much he affected people. And Kyungsoo hated it more than anything. 

"Hey, horn boy." he whispered, his gaze rising from the collar of his shirt to his mouth. This time it didn't sound like he was angry or mocking him. It was different. The tone of his voice made his legs tremble. 

Until he realized that it wasn't really him that was shaking. 

It was the ground. Vibrating. The walls reverberated at his back. 

The hazing, he noticed. But he wasn't the only one. Jongin seemed to notice as well, and grabbed Kyungsoo's wrist to pull him away from there, releasing him only when he was sure they were both running. They walked down the second floor corridor until they reached the stairs, where the quarterback practically slid down the banister to the first floor. The small one stayed a little behind, coming down the steps two at a time as he asked any deity willing to listen that he wouldn't fall down. 

"Yixing and his group are coming this way." Jongin said, softly, waiting for him at the end of the stairs. 

The noise increased gradually, as if a herd of furious buffaloes was approaching. What was the chinese doing to his group of freshmen, anyway? 

Jongin pulled Kyungsoo by his shirt, guiding him through the corridors. They passed the auditorium where educational lectures and presentations took place, through the director's locked room, and finally through the dark cafeteria. The sensation of wandering through school at night was strange, but at the same time refreshing. They felt the adrenaline taking over their bodies, as it usually feels to be doing something wrong or forbidden. 

When they got close to the pool area, they stood side by side, leaning against the wall. Kyungsoo could see the brunet's chest arching, rising and falling with heavy breathing. But he soon looked away from the uncovered skin of his chest and kept walking. 

"Wait!" Jongin called, holding his arm before he could move any further. "They are in the pool. We need to go in the opposite direction."

"But Yixing's group is also coming here." Kyungsoo remarked. "We can't go back. We're trapped!"

Unexpectedly, Jongin smiled, bending his knees to sink a little against the wall. His hair was wet at the tips, a few strands clinging to his temples because of the sweat. He tilted his head toward the boy, an amused glint flickering in his eyes. 

"What's so funny, quarterback?" Kyungsoo asked. 

"Don't you think it's kinda fun?"

"Fun?" He replied, blinking and trying to calm his breath before continuing. "I'm cornered against two groups of mad football players on a Tuesday night and accompanied by you, exactly the kind of guy that I hatethe most. The popular kid who likes to take advantage of others and the horn boy from the school band. Together. And at the risk of being kicked out of high school." Kyungsoo sighed, letting the air out from his mouth. "Your concept of fun is not one of the best, athlete. 

Jongin rolled his eyes and looked away from him. 

"It's amazing how you can ruin all the fun." The boy moved away from the wall and pointed in the opposite direction with a nod. "Now, let's get out of here."

With a gesture, the boys took a few steps forward, but stopped as soon as they saw the group of freshmen down the hall. They were breathless, sweaty, and raised their knees to waist height as they walked, with Yixing leading them dressed in their red and blue team jacket, marching as if he was leading a bunch of soldiers.

They have not had time to notice more than that. Cornered, their only option was to make a last-minute change of plans and run to the other side heading to the pool. Kyungsoo could hear the screams, claps and whistles as they sneaked, now more cautiously, crouched near the wall that separated the area destined to the swimming club. Holding their breath, he only managed to drag themselves halfway down the path. 

And then the first balloon fell. 

The boys had to restrain the urge to scream or mutter aloud when at least three balloons fell into that area. Kyungsoo felt one fall on his head, the liquid spreading through his hair and splashing into his shirt. They were balloons filled with paint, each with a different color. When he touched his own hair and looked down, he noticed that his uniform and his hands were stained with green paint. Another, who had burst on the floor near them, ended up getting his pants stained with orange paint. 

Damn it.

Kyungsoo took a deep breath and tried to shake off the urge to curse all twenty-three politically correct curses he had learned in a BuzzFeed post. Luckily, he didn't have to fight the urge to take on his dirty mouth version for long. The brunet pulled him by the arm before he had a chance to utter any of them.

"Locker room." Jongin said, hurried. And the two ran in that direction. 

The locker room had two parallel rows of lockers, an area reserved for showers, two long rectangular benches and the smell of antidandruff shampoo. It was the first thing Kyungsoo thought of when he was practically pushed into the room. He wasn't sure about the shampoo, but there was no doubt that the place was damp, hot, and muffled. 

Jongin's voice practically echoed in there.

"I think we're safe."he said, leaning back in the locker before finally allowing himself to smile, relieved. "Damn it. I feel like Tom Cruise himself in Mission: Impossible." 

"Your self-esteem is to be admired." the small guy said. "But I think you're right... It was kinda fun."

The athlete put a hand around his ear, as if that might help him hear better, leaning over the other boy's body. 

"Did I hear right? Have you, Do Kyungsoo, just admitted that I'm right about something?"

"Yeah. Enjoy while you can. Maybe it's the last time." 

"Wow. It almost sounded like we were friends." 

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and slapped him in the chest. 

"You wish, quarterback." 

Jongin opened his mouth to retort, but he swallowed and gave up halfway when he realized that Kyungsoo's hand was still there in his chest. Half on his white shirt, the other half on his exposed skin. It was strange, and the exchange of looks that lasted longer than necessary only made it worse. No doubt it was strange. Maybe because he knew the boy was gay, or maybe because they were alone in an enclosed space. He couldn't tell. The fact was that suddenly the dressing room seemed to be much hotter and muffled. 

With a nervous laugh, the athlete pulled the boy's hand away from his chest and approached the sink on the other side of the room. Behind him, Kyungsoo mumbled something about the state of his uniform, which by then was already ruined by the paint. He decided that ignoring him was the wisest move. Instead, he turned on the tap and let the water flow freely, using his hands to wet his face.

As he stared at his reflection in the mirror, he tossed the hair back and saw the other boy wiping the tips of his fingers on his filthy T-shirt, still leaning against the metal cabinets behind him. 

"You're lucky I'm being nice today, "Jongin said, stepping away from the sink and walking back to the lockers, stopping in front of the number 88. After inserting the combination, he sank one of the arms inside and pulled out a plain white cotton T-shirt. 

"Here." he offered, pushing his clothes toward Kyungsoo's chest." You can wear this and give it back to me later."

The small boy looked at him suspiciously. 

"What monster would I be if I let you come home like that? I bet your parents have the picture of a perfect, self-righteous son. We can't ruin your reputation as a nerd, right?" He waved the T-shirt before his eyes, until Kyungsoo finally accepted it. "Good choice, horn boy." 

"If you put itching powder here, quarterback, I swear..." 

"Come on. We're seventeen, not eight."

Kyungsoo sat on the wooden bench and left the cotton piece at his side as he undid the buttons on his uniform shirt. Jongin, still standing by the locker, was also halfway through the process of removing his own blouse. He gripped the cloth and took it off, causing his hair to become a mess. 

And the young man tried to look away. The white shelves on one of the walls, the towels on the hangers, the rubbery floor near the showers and even a trophy cabinet that was just there to show how sports clubs were the school's pride. He swears he tried. But as soon as he noticed the muscles of his golden back contracting with each movement, it was too late. He followed him discreetly with his eyes until Jongin grabbed his jacket inside the closet, put it on and zipped it over his bare chest. 

Kyungsoo looked away as the athlete turned, turning his attention to the last two buttons of his uniform. He pulled the shirt over his shoulders, got rid of the last traces of paint, and put on his borrowed T-shirt. It smelled like Jongin. And that annoying quarterback might even be an unbearable jerk, but wow he had to admit that the damd boy smelled good. 

 

"You forgot to take off the tie." Jongin warned, pulling the piece by the tip and forcing Kyungsoo's body to lean a little forward. It was still possible to see his bare chest at the top of the red and navy blue football jacket, where the zipper wasn't fully closed. He seemed to do it on purpose. Every action was perfectly calculated to irritate him, he was sure. 

Kyungsoo sighed, still trying to formulate an answer that wasn't just a curse when he heard footsteps in the hallways. All he heard was a whisper of "Shit" escaping from the brunette's lips before being dragged into one of the cabins. 

Jongin pressed him against the wet wall of the shower, his hand flat against his chest. With his arm free and impressive speed, he managed to lock the door behind them just as the group of loud, hysterical, sweaty freshmen entered the locker room. 

"That was awesome!" Someone said and laughter echoed in there. "If the hazing was like this "he added," I can't wait to see how the freshmen's welcome party is gonna be." 

Another voice stated, much more rigid and mocking. Oh Sehun, Jongin acknowledged. 

"This is just the beginning, rookies. Don't be so happy just because you won a team uniform. I want to see everyone show this excitement on the field too, got it?" 

The boys intoned an extended "Yesss!" making noises that made two boys hiding in one of the cabins to cringe in surprise. This was the sound of closing doors, Kyungsoo realized, worried. They were going to the showers. "Great. Now take a quick shower and go home. Tomorrow we'll have more training." 

The locker room erupted in shouts, clapping and another chorus of "Yes, sir!" and "We'll work hard!" 

"Where's Byun?" Yixing whispered to Sehun, as the place fell silent again. 

"Out there. He's going to spend the whole dawn here cleaning the damn paint. And that's what he gets for trying to trick me." 

"Come on, Oh." complained the running back. "We have class tomorrow morning. The boy has barely arrived and you are already terrorizing him. Aren't you being a little harsh? He is a great linebacker. You know we can't risk losing him especially with the game season coming..." 

Sehun chuckled. 

"Let's not lose the guy, relax. I know what I'm doing." 

Although Oh Sehun's command had been a quick shower, for Kyungsoo and Jongin inside the cabin, those minutes seemed to be infinite. The shower water temperature now began to form clouds of steam that gathered in the air above them, leaving the locker room increasingly humid and hot. The athlete seemed to have interpreted it as an excuse to lower his jacket zipper a little, opening it down, and this time leaving the abdomen fully visible. 

Still very close, with the two arms of the quarterback imprisoning him against the wall, Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and raised the other boy's zipper containing a grunt that stuck to the back of his throat. The area was very small, and he didn't want to be forced to face his body in a good shape and even if his life depended on that.

It didn't last long. In a matter of seconds, there was Jongin opening the zipper again, showing that little smile that made the boy want to punch him in the face. The small boy didn't give up, and then he zapped again. The two of them stayed in that kind of up-down-up-down game for awhile, sometimes exchanging angry glances, then exchanging silent laughs. 

They stopped only when someone tried to push the door of their cabin, but realized that it was closed.

"It must be interdicted."

Jongin almost let out a sigh of relief, but held it. When he looked at Kyungsoo again, his lips moved in an inaudible phrase. 

That was close. 

After the freshmen finished packing and left, the boys still took a few minutes as a precaution. Sharing that space with Kim Jongin was an even more difficult task than he had imagined. After all, the athlete wouldn't leave him alone for a second, and his T-shirt he was wearing only seemed to make it worse, because Kyungsoo could smell him everywhere on the fabric attached to his body, in the stuffy air of the bathroom, and especially in the neck just a few inches from his face. And he smelled annoyingly good. Damn it. 

Kyungsoo left first, breathing heavily. It was as if, until that moment, locked in the cabin with Jongin, he was holding his breath. Before leaving the dressing room, he looked at himself in the mirror one last time and straightened his hair, but frowned when he noticed the look of the quarterback behind him. 

He could not be... Or could he? 

"Please tell me you're not looking at my ass." 

"I was not..." he tried to deny it, but the little smile reflected in the mirror gave him away. Then the athlete looked again, though he didn't insist to hide. "Okay, you got me. I was definitely looking at your ass. Sorry. But your pants are really tight." 

The boy huffed, outraged. "

You're unbelievable." 

"Should I sleep with my eyes open tonight?"

"I suggest you lock the doors and windows." 

"Okay, okay. This time I deserve the death threat."

The dialogue so friendly between them caused a sensation in Kyungsoo's stomach. He couldn't be nice to him. Not with the guy who'd revealed his most important secret to the whole school. Not with the idiot who'd got him out of the closet forcibly. Supposedly, he should never forgive him for what he did. 

Before picking up his backpack in the closet and straightening it in the back, the brunet stopped at the entrance to the dressing room and watched him carefully, as if to say something. 

"I think you know, but... There's going to be a party on Saturday. It's the welcome party for the freshmen. Maybe..." Jongin scratched the back of his neck, pulling his jacket around one shoulder. "Maybe you want to go..." 

The other boy turned to him, shaking his head. 

"You better know the answer to this invitation better than anyone." Kyungsoo snorted. And there was the hostile vibe between them. "No, thank you. Thanks to you, quarterback, I'm going to avoid parties for a while. And alcoholic drinks, mostly." 

He nodded in agreement.  
The athlete closed the zipper to the end, now covering his torso to his chest, and walked toward the door, but hesitated as soon as he touched the metal handle. Kyungsoo was still watching him with an angry and at the same time confused look, trying to understand the motives behind that mysterious invitation when Jongin gave up his dramatic exit and turned to him again. 

"I didn't do that. "

"What do you mean?" asked the small one, even more confused. 

Jongin leaned against one of the walls, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"I didn't do that." he repeated, this time looking directly into his eyes. "I didn't post your video."


	7. The Broom Closet

Minseok put his face in one of his hands.

"A gay club?"

"Yeah," Kyungsoo said, chewing some cookies.

Even though the alarm had rang already, signaling the end of the required classes, the two were still writing the math notes sitting in the front row like the good nerds they were. The feline-looking boy entertained himself by making origami with chewing gum wrapper while Kyungsoo tried to make the exercises the teacher had passed them.

His mind, however, was far away.

At heart, he didn't want to know about equations, heron-shaped chewing gum papers, and even his newest club's eccentricities. The words Jongin had told him Tuesday night were still haunting him. He wondered what the athlete had meant by "I didn't do it." If he was not the one that posted the video, how had he taken the blame? Why? And more importantly: if he was not the one to blame, then who was it?

"Minseok," he called, being illuminated by a sudden idea. "Did you get your camera back?"

"The principal said she'd give it back to me tomorrow afternoon. Why?"

"I... There's something about that video I wanted to check."

"Something? Like what? "He raised an eyebrow curiously. His fingers still playing absently with one of the tiny tsurus he had made. "I don 't think they kept the video on the memory card for me or anyone else to have access. They must have deleted it. And the video was also reported on YouTube, so it was removed."

Kyungsoo grunted, nodding. He dropped the pencil and rubbed his eyes under his glasses, frustrated. "Just forget about it, Seok. It was just a curiosity."

"And this curiosity has something to do with Kim Jongin?"

The boy put way the notebook and the case in his backpack before answering. "Perhaps..." he answered cautiously, aware of the unsatisfied expression on his friend's face, which made it clear how displeased he was to see Kyungsoo getting close to someone as dumb as Jongin. "It's not a big deal, it's just a doubt that I have. When you retrieve the camera, can you let me know?"

Minseok smiled, patting him in the shoulder.

"Of course."

They headed out of the empty room, crossing the first floor corridor and going towards the toilets. The friend eventually threw all his origami into the nearest bin, which, in Kyungsoo's opinion, was a waste of talent. If you see it the practical side, though, it was the wisest choice to make, considering that it would be impossible to use one of the urinals while holding herons, dogs, and flowers made of paper.

Kyungsoo entered one of the bathrooms because the urinals were almost all occupied and he didn t want to risk getting odd looks from the two guys of the basketball team if he decided to pee in the urinal between them.

He was always amused at how the cabin doors served better as a bulletin board than the school's mural. It had all kinds of things: biblical verses, important communiqués, political protests, motivational phrases, love statements, at least three versions of penis drawn by different artists and even a section reserved for lost and found.

And a little further down there were a few more announcements: a donation of three kittens that he couldn't let Minseok see, a warning that the chemistry test was canceled and a statement that there was a new video of Byun Baekhyun on the college gossip blog, Drop That.

But among all those scribbles and promiscuous drawings, another sentence caught his eye.

 

Kyungsoo is a  ~~pussy~~ cutie.

 

He stood there, paralyzed, one hand still lightly touching the button of his uniform pants. Someone had called him a pussy in that message written on the door, but ironic as it was, that was not exactly what puzzled him. Kyungsoo observed for some time the note made next to it with a red pen, where the cursing had been corrected by the word cutie.

This was not Minseok's handwriting, or anyone he knew.

Someone was defending him.

And he needed to find out who it was.

 

***

 

Sehun never measured the consequences of his actions.

He made no plans. He just didn't care.

When his parents received a call from the school's co-ordinator, claiming that he had crossed the line during the freshmen's hazing, he wasn't too surprised. It was typical of him to make decisions without following a plan and soon after seeing it backfire. So that Friday morning he didn't care when he found a note from the director in his locker.

Three days of suspension and a Saturday in detention. Easy.

He'd been waiting for it ever since Yifan decided to make a live stream on Drop That. The video had received hundreds of views, and the news quickly spread throughout the school that week, especially after the school newspaper had made a special emergency edition on Wednesday to report it. In the end, the transmission of Byun Baekhyun naked had only made him even more popular in the school, and the girls kept talking about how handsome he was.

He did'nt expect, however, that suspension wasn't the only thing different that they had left for him. Someone else had left a little surprise in his locker.

As he put the combination on and opened it, dozens of colored balloons hit him on the face and on his uniform, spreading paint all over the hall. The metal frame, his clothes, his hair, and even his sneakers were drenched in a mixture of very vivid and flashy colors.

He looked down at his hands, the fluorescent-green liquid dripping down his fingers.

"Holy shit," he exclaimed as the passing students giggled, walked away, or took their cell phones out of their pockets.

Wendy, the school's newspaper columnist that was passing over there, also did her part as a gossip professional and turned on the camera on her iPad.

"Say hello to Drop That, Sehun" she said, feigning sympathy.

Leaning against the wall on the other side, he saw Byun Baekhyun with just a headset hanging in his ear and his hands tucked into his coat pocket. He wanted to swear again when he realized the son of a bitch was smiling, but he didn't. Not for lack of courage, but because, at that moment, he was more concerned about walking up to him and pulling him by the sweatshirt.

Sehun never measured the consequences.

Baekhyun, on the other hand, knew how to plan.

He was prepared for the wide-receiver's attack.

As planned, Byun raised his fist and hit the boy's jaw, watching a thread of blood gather in the corner of his mouth. However, he wasn't expecting him to retaliate so fast. So when Sehun hit him in the eye too, he wasn't alert or reasoning enough to avoid it.

In a matter of seconds, people in the hallway began to disperse or move closer to the walls, making room for both boys who were now beginning to trade punches on the floor, trying to immobilize each other's legs. The students only decided to leave the scene and run away when one of the monitors approached to stop the fight.

They moved away from each other. Red faces and messy hair, breathing heavily.

In the speakers on the ceiling, the director's voice began to ring, echoing down the hall.

 

_Oh Sehun and Byun Baekhyun. In my office. Now!_

 

***

 

The sun was already setting behind the bleachers as Jongin sprawled on the bench with his legs wide open and one of his hands pulling his chest shirt, trying to get rid of the heat and sweat. His cheeks were blurred with black paint, and his uniform, now free of the shoulder pad and so many protective equipment, was filthy and stuck to his legs like skinny jeans.

Sehun was lying in the bottom row, defeated. That late afternoon, he had already complained of his bad luck and also of Byun Baekhyun (mainly of Byun Baekhyun) at least a million times. Everyone already knew about what had happened in the hall earlier, and also about the next Saturday before the game against Taejon High school, when he and his rival would be forced to share an entire afternoon of detention together.

Yifan and Yixing seemed more interested in talking about panties, feminine curves and all the beautiful girls who had already confirmed their presence at the festivities of the following day. The two of them were throwing the soccer ball at each other, practicing passes while they were chatting away.

"Jihyo?" The running back smiled mischievously, and dimples appeared on his cheeks.

Kris received the pass and put his arm behind, gaining some boost while thinking.

"She's definitely a seven."

"Really? I'd give her a eight, easily. But her ass certainly deserves a ten."

"And Nayeon, what do you think of her?"

"I think her breast has forgotten to grow, but her face... six and a half?"

Yifan chuckled.

"You're being very kind," he said, receiving and throwing the ball again. "I am considering Hyosung as a nine for the breasts' parameter and Joohyun ten for her face, so you can see that I am an exigent appraiser. Nayeon wouldn 't get close to a five in both categories."

"Ugh, how cruel."

The two suddenly stopped, walking toward the bleachers and throwing the ball to the quarterback, who caught her in the air almost by reflex.

"What about you, Jongin?" Sehun intruded too, poking his friend with the tip of his sneakers. "How much would you give?"

The boy sighed, stretching his legs on the bench.

"Ten."

"What? You're not too picky."

"And for Seulgi?"

"Ten." he answered again, not even blinking.

"That's not fair. You gave ten to all of them by now," complained Sehun.

"Yeri from the science club? The hyeme of the airbag tits?" Kris listed with his fingers, trying to think of any more of the beauties of the school. "And what about Joy, the girl who took her friend's boyfriend in her first year? How much?"

Jongin just wanted to escape that stupid conversation as quickly as possible, especially when his best friend's name came up. He clenched his fist, irritated, but there was nothing he could do or say. In theory, he and Sooyoung shouldn't know each other. Or rather, they shouldn't keep in touch. Not anymore.

He had to make a pretty damn dangerous deal with Wendy so no one would say anything about what happened in the ladies' locker room. He did not need any more trouble.

"Ten, ten, and ten, " he said. The athlete squatted on the bleachers and took a sip of water from his bottle, turning to face his friends with a grin. "No matter what you think, every woman deserves a ten."

"Uh, look at him!" Yifan stepped forward and threw an arm around his shoulders, patting him in the back. "Our quarterback here is a lover boy."

Jongin shrugged and smiled, but didn't deny it.

Humility above everything, self-love above anyone.

The sky was already darkening when the four athletes decided to go home. The spotlights cast pale lights on the field, and at that hour, the absence of students wandering from one place to another made the school acquire a ghostly appearance.

With the excuse that he would still practice on his own and maybe stretch himself further, Jongin was left behind. His friends went their way without him. The quarterback needed some time to think.

Think about the match against Taejon High School next weekend.

Think about what he had told Kyungsoo in the locker room, and how that simple information could change everything. Think about himself and what it would be like if he let come out all those secrets he had tried so hard to protect for all this time.

He leaned his body against one of the bars separating the field from the bleachers and stared at the half-ripped and blurred posters glued to the side of the metal frame.

The gay boy of Yongsan High School.

Jongin observed Kyungsoo's face on the worn sheet and shook his head in disagreement, mentally reprimanding the whole situation. He should never have gotten involved with it. And he hated to have his share of guilt in what was going on.

When he realized, he was already taking the posters out of there and tearing them in several tiny bits on the nearest trash can.

He ripped them all off. One by one.

Pulling, ripping and throwing in the trash.

Until there was no more left.

 

***

 

The treehouse had always been the secret hiding place for Minseok and Kyungsoo. It was there where they both fled when they needed to isolate themselves from the world, share secrets or simply be themselves. Since they shared the first and most important confession of their lives in that small wooden house, the place has become a kind of safe haven.

This was the place that Kyungsoo said he was gay to someone for the first time. They were watching the second movie of High School Musical when the small one, at that time thirteen years old, shifted uncomfortably in one of the puffs and sighed loudly.

"Troy is so handsome..."

The boy had regretted the phrase the next second and in every second that followed in that frightening silence, only with the buzz of dialogue between the characters on the TV echoing up there. Minseok seemed to take years, months, centuries to clear his throat and look at his friend.

"Do you think so?" he asked, barely managing to speak the words without shaking his voice. They were walking on eggs there. Each sentence carried a new confession. "I prefer Chad. He looks good in his tank top and his hair is cute, so, um, I wouldn't complain about anything else in life if I could just touch it for only five minutes."

That day, they spent the rest of the night talking about the boys from the Wildcats team, how much Chad and Ryan could be a couple after that I Don't Dance scene and, of course, Zac Efron's cute smile. _Especially_ about Zac Efron's cute smile.

Now, almost five years later, things had not changed much Minseok still had those Christmas lights decorating the balcony of the tree house, the already worn Seo Taiji and Boys posters on the wooden wall and a small television in front of the aged pull-out-chouch. They were meeting there on a Saturday night for a secret mission: rummaging through the camera for evidence that Kim Jongin was innocent. But, unfortunately, they ended up discovering that there was nothing else there. The video had been deleted by the school's coordination.

The older boy typed frantically on his cell phone, causing the device to make beeps and more notification beeps each time Chameleon_81 answered the chat in the app.

Kyungsoo threw a pillow towards him in a frustrated attempt to get his friend's attention, but pitching at a distance wasn't his strong suit. Even if the distance, in this particular case, meant less than three meters between the pull-out-couch and the puff near the TV.

"When are you going to shut off this cell phone?" He took his eyes off the device, ignoring the question. Knowing his best friend well, Kyungsoo knew he probably hadn't listened to him. The boy couldn't pay attention to two things at once.

"Hey, Soo. Do you think sending a meme during sexting spoils everything?"

"Probably..." he replied thoughtfully, but his questioning expression soon turned into a dramatic set of wide-eyed and gaping mouth. "Wait a second! Are you having sex with him on the phone?"

"Of course not," he replied, as if it were obvious. "We're arguing about sending memes while having sex on the phone. It's a hypothetical situation."

"You're both pathetic."

"Yeah, I know." He smiled. "But at least we're being pathetic together."

"I think I'm going to throw up."

Minseok laughed and turned his attention back to the messages on his cell phone.

 

Chameleon_81:

What if the meme has sexual connotations?

 

Puss in Boots:

No memes!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Chameleon_81:

God. Did you just use 12 exclamation points????????????

 

Puss in Boots:

Jesus, and you just did the same with the interrogation marks

I counted it

 

Chameleon_81:

It almost sounds like we're flirting [emoji winking]

 

Puss in Boots:

This is the perfect time for me to send a meme and test our theory that memes during sextings are a turnoff.

 

Chameleon_81:

I think we'll need to leave the sexting (and also the memes) for another time

I'll have to put away my cell phone in a while

 

Puss in Boots:

Really? Where are you? *insert here a tearful face because I'm too lazy to look for a proper emoji*

 

Chameleon_81:

I'm hitchhiking with a friend

We're about to enter a party

We'll talk later [purple heart emoji]

 

 

 

When his chat status went offline, Minseok's countenance seemed to wither. He couldn't deny that he had spent too long observing that last message, cursing his undeniable weakness for heart emojis. Even so, knowing that his Chameleon Boy was leaving a night of very interesting discussions about sexting and memes made him a little disappointed. He was about to close the app when he noticed a different and unusual thing pop up in the corner of the screen.

 

Oh. My. God.

 

"Soo, code red!" Minseok almost screamed, euphoric. "Code super red!"

"Oh, geez. What is it now?"

Minseok stared at his cell phone screen one, two, three times just to make sure he wasn t imagining things. What were the chances of Chameleon_81, who had always been careful not to reveal his identity, to have been that sloppy? Or worse: what were the chances that he did it on purpose? The boy might never find out if it was a coincidence, fate or an invitation from the secret admirer, but the fact was that he was there.

The GPS of his cell phone was on, and it was possible to see his location in real time. Seoul, South Korea. Hannam-dong, 176.

He knew that address. He remembered very well that he had seen it written on a poster nailed to the school mural that week. The welcome party for the freshmen, he thought, gathering the pieces of the puzzle with a speed that would make Sherlock Holmes envious.

Determined, he got up from the pull-out-chouch and threw the pillow at his feet back at his friend. His heart was beating so fast he couldn't reason. He couldn't think of anything else. It was hard to even breathe.

"Go and get ready, Kyungsoo..." he practically ordered, an anxious smile taking over his lips. "We are going to a party."

 

 

***

 

Kyungsoo couldn't believe he was there.

After what had happened last week, he had sworn before God, Buddha, Allah and all the saints cataloged in the Bible that he would never put his feet on a party again. And if being gay was almost a prerequisite to being sent to hell, perhaps breaking his oath to the sacred deities was not such a deadly sin. He was already screwed up enough just for being Do Kyungsoo, the boy who used to be invisible and who now had a label stamped on his forehead wherever he went.

The boy thought everything would be much easier if he at least liked parties. That is to say, all those people parading back and forth with drinks, making out in the hallways and entering the pool on Yifan's house only in intimate clothes, as if it were an Oriental version of Project X, was somewhat interesting, to say the least.

But he had to admit: he missed when people still listened to The Black Eyed Peas and drank non-alcoholic punch.

"Come on, you could do better than that," Minseok grumbled for the fifth time that night. Kyungsoo counted. "Pick up your khaki pants, change your glasses for contact lens and wear a green T-shirt is not enough to turn you into a good cosplay of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo."

When he agreed to go to the freshmen party, Kyungsoo had no idea that he would need to wear a costume. This was something he hadn't done since Halloween in the seventh grade, when he dressed all in black, wore makeup around his eyes and left saying that it was Toshio, from The Grudge. It worked at the time. But he knew that this combination of clothes wouldn't convince anyone there.

The freshmen party was one of the most anticipated celebrations of the year. It was almost some kind of tradition. The students would gather at the home of one of the popular boys, enjoyed the night, and even reserved a special time for the hazing ending: the official delivery of the team jackets. And the people took it very seriously.

On a quick glance, Kyungsoo saw five boys from the theater club dressed as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and MacBeth; a group of friends dressed as minions, from Despicable Me; Yeri dressed as one of the Harry Potter characters, Hermione; someone wearing a gigantic costume of No-Face from Spirited Away; a Peter Pan and a Tinker Bell, and even a flawless cosplay of Taki Tachibana, the protagonist of the Japanese animation Kimi no Na wa.

He turned to look at his friend, facing his dark costume, from the boots to the mask covering his face.

"You have no moral to judge me. Dude, seriously, this Batman costume is from eighth grade."

" And it still fits," he bragged. "Isn't it a miracle?"

"It's so tight it looks like Batman is wearing a corset."

"In other words, you just agreed that I'm hot in it." He smiled, satisfied. "Thank you, Soo. I always knew that one day you would admit that I am your most handsome friend."

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes.

"You are my only friend."

"How rude. There is no need to take the merit from my implacable beauty just because I have no competition. I'm still the most handsome."

"I give up on you, " he replied, laughing, and then pointed to one of the halls. "I'm going to look for a bathroom."

Minseok nodded in agreement.

"And I'm going to look for the love of my life."

"Do you even know what he looks like?" Kyungsoo asked, just before he saw his friend steal a glass of drink from one of the tables and take a sip, looking 100 percent confident.

"No," he admitted. "But I'll find out."

And then he made his dramatic exit while a remix of Dick in the Air began to play, leaving him alone.

 

 

***

 

 

Minseok was losing hope.

He thought it would be easy to get into the party, wander for five minutes and end up finding his beloved Chameleon Boy. Trouble is, he has been there a long time. Enough to drink three cups of punch and steal some chips forgotten by somebody in Yifan's living room. Standing by the candy table, he waited for a miracle as he watched the lights dance in the room, surrounding the people and the DJ himself in a reddish light.

He was a little dizzy. And sad. And dismayed.

Even as he searched for a clue in each of those people and the costumes they wore, the boy had no idea how Chameleon should look. He had imagined thousands of faces for his secret crush, and fallen in love with them all. But what if the boy was nothing of what he imagined? What if he was completely the opposite of what he expected?

Whoever he was, Minseok knew it would be impossible not to like him.

At this point, he had to admit that Kyungsoo was terribly right. He should not have come up with that Batman costume. His pants were too tight and the mask was almost suffocating him. Every now and then, his black cape pinned somewhere it shouldn't, leaving him irritated. Minseok was about to give it all up and go.

"Hey," a soft voice called over the music, and he looked up at the newcomer, standing on the other side of the punch table. "Nice costume."

He observed the stranger for a few seconds, trying to analyze his face partially covered by a black mask, but didn't recognize him. Though he suspected, deep down, that he knew him from somewhere.

His costume was composed of a yellow and black cape, a belt, green gloves and a red sweater. There was a circle with an R on his chest, a very convincing cosplay of the Robin from DC in the 60's, and Minseok thanked God for wearing pants. He would not be able to hide his sexuality if he weren't.

If that gaydar thing really existed, his was centainly whistling.

"Oh, thank you. Yours too." He thanked. "We're kind of matching, right? Unintentionally."

Good, Minseok. You just said to the boy's face that Batman and Robin m-a-t-c-h.

"Totally unintentionally."

"Yeah..."

"There's alcohol in it?" the boy asked again, pointing to the transparent bowl of punch.

"I don't know. It could have some. Maybe that's why I feel a bit dizzy."

"Do you want to... go out for a bit and take a breath, then?" He invited, and if Minseok had any doubts about his gaydar, he was sure of it now. Because that clearly meant a 'Hey, we could go to a less-busy place to have some fun' in teenage language. "I can go with you, if you like."

He smiled, putting his glass down on the table.

"Of couse." The two stumbled into the crowd, laughing when one of them ended up getting trapped between couples dancing or tripping over someone on the dance floor. Minseok didn't understand what he tried to shout over the song but saw when the boy pointed to a window across the room.

When he arrived at that party, he didn't imagine that he would end up getting to know someone, even if that someone was not Chameleon_81. Because Chameleon would probably never dress like Robin. He was too discreet for that.

The stranger unlocked and lifted the window, and then they both jumped to the other side, where there was a dark corridor with only a few lights hidden in the plants near the wall.

The place was so narrow that the two of them couldn't walk side by side, so Robin went ahead, waiting for his Batman at the end of that stone path. He pulled him gently so that they stood face to face in the small place, so that his chest now almost leaned against his.

Minseok tried to hold his breath, because it was agitated, and he prayed that the boy wouldn't notice. However, it was almost impossible to exhale slowly when he was so nervous. The fingers under the gloves of his costume were tingling.

"So, are you having fun at the party?" he asked, smiling, and Minseok realized he had a cute smile. His voice could now be clearly heard there.

"Actually, no."

"Problems?"

"Yeah, sort of." admitted "I was supposed to be dancing and kissing someone out there. I guess I'm not lucky."

The boy reacted with another smile when he said _someone_ , not _a girl_.

"Your first kiss? "

"If accidentally giving your great-aunt a peck counts..."

"It doesn't count."

"Yeah." Minseok sighed. "Then it's the first. I mean, it would be the first one if anyone was interested in me. It's true that I'm not the prettiest or coolest guy..."

He stopped talking when he felt one of Robin's hands rise to his shoulder and had to remember to breathe normally when the hands came to rest on his neck, then on his jaw, tracing his face until resting it on his cheek. The only thing that saved him from panicking and running was realizing that now his chest was completely attached to the boy's, and his heart wasn't the only one beating fast.

"You are." the boy whispered, his strawberry breath escaping from his lips while he spoke, their mouths very close. "The coolest and also the most handsome." He held his face in both hands and smiled sweetly without showing his teeth. "You're Batman, after all."

He did not know what he was thinking when he leaned forward and kissed the boy, who immediately returned the kiss. Maybe it was the alcohol, or his willingness to get lost in someone's arms that night. Anyway, he had to admit to himself that this was the best idea he ever had.

Minseok never thought a kiss could be so good. And even if his back was pressed against the ivy-clad wall, with the little leaves tickling his neck, he didn't care about anything else as Robin held the back of his neck and pulled his hair a little.

Their lips pressure was slow, soft. And every movement of the mouth against his was capable of sending shivers through his entire body, making him want to tear off his gloves to really feel him, skin with skin. But he did not dare interrupt the kiss, not even for a second because Minseok didn't know when he would have the opportunity to do this again.

He smiled in the middle of the kiss when he remembered that that night he was just a Batman kissing a Robin in the dark hallway of Wu Yifan's house. Just a boy kissing another boy for the first time. Feeling strawberry taste mingle with the taste punch in his mouth, the warm body against his and his hands making him melt completely.

Maybe all is not lost at that party, at last.

 

***

 

Going to the bathroom, which was not as crowded as he thought it would be, was fairly smooth. Apart from, of course, the fact that Kyungsoo probably interrupted some straight couple who was about to conceive future nine months of pregnancy over the sink, it wasn't so bad. The whole thing only worsened when he got lost on his way back, and instead of finding the living room or the backyard, he ended up coming downstairs to the basement.

Unlike the refined look of the rest of the house, Wu Yifan's basement, adorned with a large rug with a lot of beer bottles, colorful cushions and dozens of LED lights that followed the red brick walls, seemed much more interesting. He didn't intend to go down to that hiding place down there, but he was rather amazed by the scene of a dozen young men lying cross-legged on the floor as they talked.

He only noticed that he was entering a forbidden zone when a big, heavy hand touched his shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" said the voice slowly, seeming a little drunk. He did not expect the host of the party to approach him so soon.

"What are you doing here, gay boy?" Yifan asked again deviously. "It's a lot of courage to show up in a party like this one. This is a place for my people, not for yours."

" _What?_ "

The big guy approached him, the slurring voice murmuring acidly in his ear:

"But I think it's nothing new. You've been poking you nose into it more than you should have lately, right? The glasses in the music room I found on the hazing day... They are yours, aren't they?" He laughed, and Kyungsoo flinched, because that sounded like a threat. "I think the tuneless noise of the horns in that ridiculous band messed with your brain."

Kyungsoo stared at Neo from the movie The Matrix, regretting immediately that he had agreed to Minseok's crazy idea of going to that party.

"What's going on, Kris?" A second voice came over the sound of the song. Oh Sehun, the wide-receiver. "Why did this kid come to our party? Did you invite him?"

"Do I look like someone who would invite a fag to our thing?" he said back, laughing meanly. Kyungsoo clenched his fist angrily but couldn't move away. Not with Yifan's hand holding his shoulder in place.

The boy calculated what the consequences would be if he punched that asshole in the face, but he took a deep breath, deciding it wasn't worth it. He didn't want to mess with the big guy, because Yifan always were the kind that plunges the heads of innocent kids into the toilet and then flushes. When he opened his mouth to reply, he felt a new weight on his shoulders. This time it was an arm that wrapped his neck in an intimate, almost friendly manner.

"I invited him," said the third voice, tickling his ear when the taller boy leaned his head against his, rather unsteady. It was Jongin. A wonderfully smelling Jongin dressed as Jack Dawson, from Titanic. With white shirt half open on his chest, suspenders and a beret over his messy brown hair.

"Why are you hanging around with the gay boy? What is your interest in him?" Kris questioned, pointing in an accusatory way toward the short boy. "It seems he's not just playing the horn in the school band, but playing our friend's trumpet too, right?"

"Take it easy, Fan" Sehun scolded. "You're drunk."

"Why are you so interested in knowing who's playing my trumpet, Yifan?" Jongin asked in his alluring tone, though his voice was louder than usual. "Are you in love with me, perhaps?"

"Fuck you, quarterback."

"Sehun," Jongin ordered, as if they were on the field and he needed to run through the instructions of the next move. "You take care of him and take him to his room. Yixing brought painkillers too, if you need it. This idiot always sucks when he's drunk, so make sure he's not going to ruin anyone's party." As they walked away, he pulled the boy closer to him and gestured toward the group seated in a circle over the carpet. "Come on, Kyungsoo. Come play Seven Minutes in Heaven with us."

Still astounded by the discussion, he unconsciously took up space alongside several strangers on the wheel. Among at least a dozen popular boys and girls, he saw Joohyun, who smiled and nodded discreetly at him. After all, one of the rules of the Gay Club was that they could not keep touch out of it with the mission of keeping it a secret.

Wendy was the mediator of the game and carried her notepad in case any good gossip came out. Aside the two girls and Jongin, everyone around him were strangers. Some athletes he did not know and girls pretty enough for their names to be on the List of the Most Beautiful on Drop That.

Someone wrote the name Kyungsoo on a little paper and mixed with the others in a yellow hat in the center of the circle, which probably belonged to the boy dressed as The Mask. When he realized what was about to happen, his body tensed, and he looked at the closet under the stairs leading to the basement, just like Harry Potter's little room.

He knew how that game worked.

Two people were randomly selected and locked in the closet.

For seven minutes. Seven whole minutes. Kyungsoo also knew that this game was just an excuse so that people would end up kissing and getting together in a private place.

"Pass the watches and cell phones to me," asked Wendy, beginning to collect the objects of all the involved. "Good. No one can count the minutes inside. Who will control the timer is me, who will stay here on the outside."

The first selected, coincidentally, were the sophomore girl dressed as Tinkerbell and the boy of the swimming club dressed Peter Pan. The poor boy left the cabinet with dozens lipstick marks on his face and neck. Those more than obvious indications that the two of them had been making out in there for seven minutes only made Kyungsoo even more nervous. What if he ended up stuck inside with one of those people? Did they expect him to kiss them? Knowing his background, probably not.

Two girls who didn't know each other ended up walking into the closet together, and ended up coming out of there very close, like long-time friends. Then Wendy tossed her hat to mix the papers again, shoving her hand in there and humming excited before drawing the next name.

"Kyungsoo! "She practically yelled, and the boy thought he might faint right there.

On the circle they laughed, finding it all very amusing. Apparently, the idea of having a nerd boy stuck inside the closet with another person for seven minutes was very funny. And Kyungsoo, even unlucky as he was, still managed to be surprised when the girl approached him and put a blindfold in his eyes.

"Okay, Kyungsoo. You can go into the closet, "she instructed, making sure the knot behind the boy's head was tight enough not to slip. "You can wait in there while I draw the next name. I'm going to lock the door outside after you both come in."

Kyungsoo immediately shook his head in negative.

"No way."

"It's only seven minutes." Joohyun tried to argue.

"Yeah," agreed Wendy. "It's going to be fun, I promise."

He didn't know where he was getting into, but he had a single certainty: good thing couldn't come from that. With the help of the newspaper columnist, he was led to the closet under the stairs and came in, fumbling blindly until he found a shelf. He sat cross-legged, feeling that all the air in his lungs had emptied and that now it would be difficult to get it back. His chest was heavy. He was nervous without knowing what was to come.

Kyungsoo felt like the protagonist of 13 going 30 in her thirtieth birthday.

He swallowed as the door opened and closed, feeling his nervousness increase catastrophically as soon as someone turned the key on the other side. They were alone. No matter who the person he would share those seven minutes with, he knew it would be embarrassing. He was not at all sociable. How could they expect him to have a conversation for so long?

The squeak of tennis sneaking through the floor filled the muffled place. As someone reached down and sat beside him, Kyungsoo placed his hand on his own legs, pressing his knees over his trousers. He let the air he was holding to escape through his mouth when the other person brought a hand to the nape of his neck.

"You can already take off the blindfold." Jongin whispered.

The athlete loosened the knot that held the blindfold behind his head and it fell on Kyungsoo's lap.

The sudden clarity made him blink a few times, trying to get accustomed to the yellow light of a single lamp on the top of the room. It was very small, probably used to store cleaning materials and brooms.

Kyungsoo leaned his head on the wall behind him and half muttered, half grunted Jongin's name.

"I thought you'd be happy to see me," the quarterback joked.

"I'd rather choke to death."

"I don't doubt it," he said, laughing. And Kyungsoo noticed that he had dimples in his cheeks when he smiled too much. "But we still have six minutes and thirty seconds, probably. I bet we can think of something less morbid to do with the time left."

The small boy stopped squeezing his own knees, now less nervous knowing that it was Jongin who was locked in there with him. If he had survived for so long dividing a tiny space into the shower cabin, he could handle it. It would be easy, right?

"We can play to see who can stay quiet for longer," he suggested, as if talking to a child.

"Ugh, you're cruel. It was more fun when you were using the blindfold."

"Starting _now_."

 

Two minutes, or five readings of packaging labels in Kyungsoo's count, passed without anyone saying anything. Jongin picked up a box of soap and was amused for some time reading the label, its chemical composition, precautions and recommendations for use. Then a detergent, a fabric softener and two soaps with different perfumes.

It was quite apparent that Jongin was going crazy with the fact that he needed to keep his mouth shut.

Still, his idea had worked. Another minute passed as Kyungsoo stared at the wooden floor, the brooms in the corner, the disinfectant containers on the shelf, or the lamp at the top of the room, throwing yellow lights over Jongin's face and dyeing his light brown hair, now free from Jack Dawson's beret, in an almost golden shade.

He glanced at the boy, trying to guess what secrets he had been hiding under dozens of layers of a popular football player. Kyungsoo wanted to ask about that, about what he had said in the locker room, but he didn't know if he should.

The small one hadn't realized that he was staring at him for too long. He only got rid of the magnetism when Jongin sighed loudly and let the air escape through his full lips. The athlete tossed his head back and his body collapsed even more against the wall behind him, causing one of the shoulder straps of his suspenders to slide over his shoulder.

"How did you realize?" Jongin finally asked, breaking the silence. "You know, that you're gay."

That question caught Kyungsoo by surprise. He settled in his crossed legs and began to play with his sneakers, because the topic was suddenly making him nervous.

"How did you realize you were straight?" Kyungsoo asked back, because that was probably the first thing that came to his head.

The boy laughed and held up his hands as if to surrender.

"Okay, you got me."

"I guess I always knew," he continued. "But it's easier to guess when you start having involuntary erections while your colleagues move in front of you during elementary school. Or when the boys start smuggling their parents' porn magazines in sixth grade." Kyungsoo frowned and laughed, as if plunging into an embarrassing memory. "I took one of these home once, and spent the night reading hidden in the room as if I were committing a crime, but the truth was that I seemed to be reading the ingredients of a shampoo pack. It wasn't fun."

Jongin laughed too, and the smile lingered for a while on his lips.

"From my own experience, I can tell you, it's no fun at all," he teased, lifting the fabric softener pack to his side.

It was the first time he'd ever seen him smile like that, without malice or provocation.

"Why are you asking this sort of thing?" Kyungsoo wanted to know, suddenly interested in the theme choice.

The quarterback just shrugged.

"Maybe I'm curious."

"About what?"

Jongin, who so far was avoiding more direct eye contact, finally looked at him. It didn't take more than a second for his gaze to fall to Kyungsoo's lips and one of his hands gripped the back of his neck. The small boy thought he was imagining things as the boy leaned forward, narrowing the distance until they were closer than normal. The small room suddenly seemed even smaller.

Jongin and Kyungsoo seemed to regain consciousness of what they were about to do when they heard the key turn in the lock, moving away immediately. The athlete cleared his throat and rubbed his neck nervously. Their time must be over, though they doubted it had been seven whole minutes. When the door swung open and Joohyun appeared with wide eyes on the other side, they realized there was something wrong.

 

"You two, hurry up!" She shouted, looking terrified. "The police is here."


	8. The Weak Spot

Sehun was sick of that party.

 

As if having to supervise the freshmen so they wouldn't break any expensive vase from Yifan's parents collection and take care of his drunk best friend and take him to his room was not enough he also had to deal with a heartbreak.

 

He was rejected by Bae Joohyun. Officially.

 

Earlier, during the jackets delivery ceremony, the guys of the football team gathered at the backyard with lanterns, candles and fireworks to celebrate the new cycle. It was the act that ended once and for all the hazing of freshmen and welcomed the new members of the team One of the most anticipated moments of the year, and Sehun was happy and anxious. After all, it had been that day that he'd chosen to actually declare himself to the girl he'd liked since elementary school.

 

Even though he'd flirted with the cheerleader captain hundreds of times, and was rejected a hundred times over, he still wasn't used it. The boy always got what he wanted, but somehow it always seemed impossible to win Joohyun 's attention.

 

Yixing, Jackson and Sehun released the first fireworks. There were three, one for each. Sparks covered the dark, starry sky, leaving a trail of smoke behind. He watched as one of them exploded up there, the lights glowing for time too short and coming apart soon after, reflecting its colors on the smiling faces of the freshmen.

 

It was Jongin who called the names this time. Traditionally, veteran players handed out friendly pats on their backs and confided words of encouragement as they handed over their jackets, helping freshmen dress it for the first time. Sehun was lucky for not having to do the same with Byun Baekhyun, because Yixing had already taken care of it for him. It really looked like a special night.

 

When he looked around for Joohyun, it wasn't long before he identified her between some familiar faces. It could only be a stroke of luck. The cheerleader dressed as a teenage version of Vanellope from the movie Wreck-It Ralph was right behind him, standing next to a Seulgi dressed as Harley Quinn. He just had to go there, confess his platonic crush and call her on a date as he always did.

 

It couldn't be so difficult, right?

 

_Wrong._

 

"Sorry, Sehun." He would never forget the way she threw her ponytail back and straightened the candy stuck in her hair, before stabbing him in the chest until he bleed. Metaphorically. "You know it won't happen."

 

From there, that party went from bad to worse. The wide-receiver drowned his sorrows with the punch full of vodka, let one of the guys of the baseball team destroy a vase from Macedonia and still had to bring Yifan, who was apparently already messing up, to his room in the second floor.

 

And everything just got worse. It was past one in the morning when police officers parked on the front lawn, causing total chaos. The DJ interrupted his playlist and the room went into complete silence, drawing everyone's attention to the big problem.

 

"The police is here!" someone screamed.

 

The people who smoked in the corridor stood up in surprise and then hid their cigarettes in a marble urn, says the myth that there are the ashes of Kris' great-grandfather. Some people fled through the windows and ran into the backyard; others locked themselves in the bathrooms or ran down the stairs on the way to the second floor.

 

Wendy came out of the basement, shouting orders.

 

"Hide all the bottles and cups," she advised, pointing to the appetizer table. "Throw the punch in the kitchen sink too!"

 

If the definition of pandemonium had been written by Oh Sehun, it would certainly describe that hideous scene of desperate teenagers, shouting orders in a clumsy way and taking turns to get out of sight anything that was forbidden to minors: alcohol, drugs, adult magazines and panties that the boys displayed as if it were a trophy.

 

The boy with the number 94 in his shirt tucked in his pocket a pink pantie he found in the back of the couch and picked up three bottles before leaving through one of the windows, spilling part of the drink in the process. There was now an opening in the white wooden fence in the backyard where most people fled.

 

In the dark street he could see some young people still running in the opposite direction of the Wu's house, laughing, and others walked with tired steps down the street that went up to the hill. He opted for the way up, even if he could barely stand. From his own experience, Sehun knew that cops used to be rather lazy when it came to hunting drunk teenagers in high places.

 

The condo Yifan lived was huge, with streets that had country names and fancy houses that probably belonged to TV and movie celebrities. He sneaked down the Switzerland Boulevard, still holding the three bottles in his hands, looking back from time to time to see if anyone had followed him. Eventually he found a nice spot near a gazebo on the lawn of a hillside.

 

He lay there, dropping the drinks on the floor beside him and sighing when he finally let himself rest, his hands folded under the back of his neck. The boy was at peace there, but he had a feeling he wouldn't feel this way for long.

 

And for the first time that day, he was terribly right.

 

"Oh, shit," someone cursed over him. "Of course It had to be you."

 

Of all the people he could have been lucky enough to cross, Baekhyun was the last one he'd like to see. Sehun merely grunted and didn't even look at his rival as he sat down beside him on the slope. He preferred to stare at the landscape up there. In all the lights of the city that could be seen from the hillside, the illumination of the poles down the streets of the condominium and on the lawn that made his legs pinch, even over his jeans.

Despite trying to focus on something that was not in the boy spread by his side, Sehun failed the minute he caught the glimpse of Baekhyun's long fingers touching one of the bottles.

 

"May I?" the new guy asked.

 

He nodded vaguely.

 

"Take it."

 

Baekhyun led the bottle to his mouth and gave a half-smile when he noticed Sehun's unsatisfied expression.

 

"You look great. Really. Your defeat face is officially my favorite."

 

"I was rejected," Sehun confessed, irritated. He lifted his chest and folded his legs, resting on his knees. "Is that what you want to hear? Is that why you came here? I told her how I feel and Joohyun rejected me. Are you happy? You won! You can celebrate."

 

The hillside was silent for a few seconds, only with the sound of cicadas singing somewhere far away.

 

"Maybe I would..." Baekhyun murmured, taking a sip of his beer. "If I hadn't been rejected too."

 

"Wait, you... You told her you like her too?"

 

"Yeah, man. She dismissed both of us."

 

"Holy shit."

 

"And honestly, I can understand why she didn't want you, but refuse all this?" He pointed to his own chest, trying to look humorous. The truth was that Baekhyun and Sehun were in pieces, and the drink wasn't the only one to blame. "It takes courage to resist all this."

 

"God help me. You're delirious."

 

"At least one of us is trying to take it well. Seeing that you got drunk and isolated yourself only to be able to suffer for a woman makes me a little happier. Joohyun managed to do in one night what I couldn't do in years," he said, almost spitting out the words. "She made you look like the great loser you really are."

 

Baekhyun felt every syllable come out filled with contempt and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew what was to come: a punch or, at worst, a broken nose. Anything Sehun could do to take out his anger and disappointment. He was ready for it, though this was yet another of his unplanned decisions.

 

The boy wasn't surprised when the wide-receiver grabbed him by the T-shirt, pulling him violently at the level of his chest. For a very brief moment, Baekhyun thought the collar would suffocate him, but the rival didn't seem to be too strong after drinking so much. He just raised the cloth in a furious way, just as he had in the break of the last game against Daewon High School.

 

Sehun was frowning, staring at the smaller boy and leaning over him, as if to show off his full height. The two boys' eyes were misty, inebriated after a party night; the city lights were reflected in Baekhyun's irises as he pulled it again, more aggressively, fingers now hooked into the tissue around his neck.

 

"I hate you so much, Baekhyun" he said, the words leaving his lips in a hot breath.

 

The boy put a hand on his shoulder to push him away, but he seemed to have lost his strength too. Baekhyun prepared to counter the offense when Sehun, unexpectedly, kissed him. The hands gripping the collar of the T-shirt were suddenly at his neck, and then holding his face, trying to eliminate any space between their mouths. Pulling, pressing and pushing his body forward, against his.

 

Sehun had no idea what he was doing. Because, unlike Baekhyun, he made no plans.

 

He hadn't planned to kiss his biggest enemy. Even worse, he did not expect him to correnpond. One of Byun's hands was on his shoulder, at first trying to push him away, but now he twisted the fabric strongly. The other hand rose anxiously and almost desperately to the back of his head as he finally gave in, deepening the kiss.

 

When he felt his skin shiver with the simple touch of long fingers pulling his hair mercilessly, Sehun blamed it on the alcohol.

 

When he sighed, between an impatient kiss tasting beer and a bite in the curve of his neck, Baekhyun blamed the alcohol.

And when the empty bottles thrown on the lawn took over the responsibility, Byun finally felt free to give up.

 

"Screw it," he grunted against Sehun's lips, passing one leg over his body and sitting on his lap without any delicacy.

That was Baekhyun's way of saying he didn't want to think about anything else, Sehun realized. But when he felt their hips so close, the wide-receiver seemed to wake up.

 

"We shouldnt..." he grunted but was stopped when Byun's teeth pulled and released his lower lip slowly.

 

"Yeah, we shouldn't."

 

Fortunately - or unfortunately - the resistance didn't last long. All it took was the feeling of Baekhyun's breath againts his mouth so that the boy could take the initiative to kiss him again.

 

Sehun pulled his body closer by the waist, lifting his T-shirt slightly as his hands wandered up and down the boy's back. Holding tight, squeezing and listening as Baekhyun sighed at every heavy touch.

 

One of his hands gripped the back of the thighs of the small guy he hated the most , and then he realized that everything was lost.

 

They were a mess of crumpled t-shirts, messy hair and bite marks when everything began to spin, and spin, and spin. Baekhyun heard the sound of a whistle sound in the distance, as if somewhere in his memory, but everything disappeared when Sehun pulled him and kissed him harder, intense and hot as hell.

 

And then they blamed the alcohol one more time.

 

***

 

Baekhyun woke up in an unknown bed the next day. He blinked still sleepily, uncomfortable with the sun that invaded the room through the blinds. With his head throbbing, he tried to get up, but two things immediately prevented his movements:

 

1) The dizziness he felt as soon as he dared to lift his chest; and 2) someone's leg thrown over one of his, both intertwined over the mess of sheets on the double mattress.

 

He pushed the body away, trying to be delicate. Byun didn't remember very well what he had done last night. The only memory left in his newly awakened hangover mind was that he had been rejected by Bae Joohyun in Wu Yifan's kitchen. Had he been drinking and then slept with some girl? He glanced sideways, fearful, hoping that at least she was pretty.

 

_Holy shit._

 

The shock made his body shift almost instantly, spinning until he fell to the floor. The thud obviously made the sleeping person on the other side of the bed wake up, getting up and crawling kind of dazed to see what the hell had caused that noise. The boy without a shirt and with messy hair was Oh Sehun.

 

"What the hell are you doing here, Byun?" he muttered, his voice three times as serious as Baekhyun was accustomed to hear.

 

"I could ask you the same thing, "he countered. "Why were we...?"

 

The question died on his lips when he realized three very important details that made that scene a real nightmare: a) the fact that he was wearing only underwear; b) the fact that Sehun was wearing only underwear; and c) almost invisible hickeys and bites on the naked torso of the boy in front of him.

 

"Holy shit," he swore. And all of a sudden, it all started spinning.

 

_Holy fucking shit._

 

He felt lucky enough that he hadn't woken up with a damn morning erection that would have let that moment a thousand times worse, but still having the memories last night coming back all at the same time was too much for his head. Baekhyun remembered arguing with him on the hillside, sitting on the lawn, and also the kisses that came later. He remembered the cops whistling at them minutes later and a quick escape to Kris' house.

 

And then the last flashes made his mind quiver with images he'd rather forget: wet kisses with his back pressed against the closet his T-shirt being ripped out by heavy, experienced hands, and finally his fingers gripping the bed sheets aggressively and with urgency.

 

_Holy shit._

 

Sehun seemed to think the same thing.

 

"Wait... Did we...?" The wide-receiver pointed to his own chest and then to Baekhyun, confused. "Do you think we had sex?"

 

The boy, still seated on the floor, hid his face in his hands. He was devastated.

 

"Holy shit, we had sex," Sehun reached to the conclusion. Baekhyun got up as fast as he could and began to take his clothes off the floor, covering himself as he could with his wrinkled T-shirt and his jeans on the inside out. Astonished, the other boy could only watch as he dressed hurriedly, almost falling as he tried to put his pants on.

 

"That will never happen again," Byun promised.

 

"Never again," repeated Sehun emphatically.

 

The boy quickly put his shoes on and got his pants zipped up before leaving, slamming the door behind him. Then, Baekhyun came down the stairs of the house running, diverting from plastic cups, broken vases and strangers sleeping on the living room rug. As the front door was locked, he escaped through one of the windows, finally breathing fresh air.

 

His head was throbbing as he leaned against the wall outside trying to clear his head. He had sex with Oh Sehun. Oh Sehun, his worst enemy. And a _boy_.

 

What the hell was Baekhyun thinking, anyway?

 

***

 

Minseok's face appeared in front of the camera, blinking his feline eyes with curiosity.

 

"Is it focusing?"

 

"Yes."

 

Mark adjusted the manual focus on the boy's face, but the other insisted on pulling away and bringing his nose closer to the lens, going back and forth several times. "It would help a lot if you stopped moving."

 

He laughed and stood up, watching the camera operator's face suspiciously. In fact, after the freshmen party on Saturday, Minseok was out there almost like a detective looking for the mysterious pair of eyes behind Robin's black mask, or someone who had a habit of eating strawberry candy. Anything. He had no idea if the costumed boy he'd kissed in the backyard was Chameleon or some other kid at his school, but he was willing to find out once and for all.

 

What are the chances of Chameleon_81 and the enigmatic Robin being the same person?

 

And if they were both at that party, it meant that maybe, just maybe, he was closer than he imagined to finally find out.

 

He looked around, analyzing all his colleagues from the audio and video club. Wendy adjusted her uniform tie in front of the mirror before preparing for the recordings. It would be his third video as anchor and vlogger for the Drop That gossip blog that week, and there was much content to be revised: the hazing, the controversial transmission of Byun Baekhyun that became viral, the season of football games that would begin in the next weekend and consequently the long-awaited summer camp for athletes, cheerleaders and the people af the school band.

 

Jooheon, who was apparently only in the club to record his mixtapes and post on Soundcloud, was warming up inside the studio by improvising a rap in front of the microphone. Sunmi, Chanyeol and Luhan, the inseparable trio who played in an indie-rock garage band, seemed quite entertained recording each other with an old VHS camcorder. Minseok also suspected that they only attended classes to record their amateur clips to YouTube.

 

He looked at the rest of the boys, some engaged in moving the cameras tripods and softboxes; others holding tabs, preparing recorders and lapel microphones, or gently forcing Wendy to revise the script.

 

The video aired forty minutes later, and they managed to record everything in just two takes.

 

When he left, he decided to send a message to his virtual crush, Minseok sat high on the bleachers as the soccer team stretched after training. He looked at the athletes from up there, in their baggy shorts and tank tops, without any shoulder pads or protective gear that could hide their muscles, and then thought, _"_ _Could any of them be you, Chameleon Boy?"_

 

He was freaking out.He knew that.

 

But there was nothing he could do to stop his curiosity. Not anymore.

 

The boy opened the app chat, determined to ask how the party went on Saturday, but as always, Chameleon_81 seemed to be one step ahead.

 

 

Chameleon_81:

I'm sorry, Puss in Boots.

I did something wrong.

 

 

Minseok frowned, now totally focused on the cell phone screen. He felt his heart growing heavy in his chest.

 

 

Puss in Boots:

Why are you apologizing?

 

 

Chameleon_81:

Ok, I guess I should have been more specific

I'm sorry for that too

It's about the party I went on Saturday

I kissed someone else

And I know we don't have anything

But I felt bad

 

 

This time Minseok's heart almost stopped. What were the chances...? He needed to find out.

 

 

Puss in Boots:

We don't have anything

You do not have to feel bad

Wait, was it a girl?

I just realized that I never asked if you're bisexual

 

 

 

Chameleon 81:

No, totally gay It was a boy

And I can't stop feeling bad for him

And also for you

 

 

Of all the people at that party, It couldn't have been him. Or could it? He thought the best way out would be to sneaky to not ruin anything. Minseok did not want to anticipate things and jump to conclusions, so he decided to stay in the shadows, at least for now.

 

 

Puss in Boots:

Bad for him? Why?

Is he a bad kisser?

 

 

Chameleon_81:

No, not at all

In fact, he's very good

Heavens, he was great

Ugh, but I feel bad for him because

During our kisses, I could only think of you

And I do not think it's fair, for neither of you

So please, forgive me

 

 

 

Puss in Boots:

There's no need to apologize, really

Don't worry

 

 

Chameleon_81:

Something about him reminded me of you

Maybe because he was dressed as Batman

And in my head something seemed to connect, you know?

Because, if you think about it, Batman kind of looks like a cat wearing boots

 

 

Minseok almost screamed. The boy needed a superhuman effort not to squeal, scream, and laugh out loud at the bleachers. He didn't want the athletes to think he was crazy, even if he wanted to get out of there, humming Can not Take My Eyes Off You and make it all a great musical, like Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You.

 

 

Chameleon_81:

But I know it wasn't you, relax.

You weren't even at that party

 

 

Puss in Boots:

Tell me more about this guy dressed as Batman

 

 

Chameleon_81:

Seriously? You don't care?

 

 

Puss in Boots:

I'm curious

 

 

Chameleon_81: The party was lame and my friends had abandoned me to be with some girls, so I ended up alone. And there was this boy, looking rather lost near the punch table, and he was really handsome. I mean, I didn't see his face, but he had pretty eyes, you know? Pretty mouth too. At first I just wanted to chat because he seemed to have been abandoned like me, but then I realized that, well, he had a gay vibe. And I don't know about you, but I don't usually guess these things right away. It's something that I perceive more by their eyes. And his gaze made it clear that he had noticed the same thing. It was funny [emoji face with tears of joy]

I never imagined myself doing this, but suddenly I invited him out of there

And he accepted

I was SO nervous to take the lead, but he kissed me first, and it was amazing

We kissed for a considerable time until the police arrived and everyone was running away

I lost him then

I couldn't even ask for his name or a phone number

 

 

Puss in Boots:

Wow, it seems to have been intense.

 

 

Minseok winced as he felt the bleachers vibrating. As he lifted his eyes from the screen, he saw his best friend climbing the stairs carrying a book under his arm. The Great Gatsby, probably the required reading of this week on the book club. Kyungsoo left the backpack next to him and sat down, muttering in relief for another school day officially finished.

 

"What's up?" he asked, and Minseok tilted his cell phone so he could read the conversation. His friend's big eyes were attentive to the messages as he ran his finger across the screen, helping him down the chat and pausing for the outbursts of _"Oh, my God!"_ and _"I can't believe this!"_. Since there were no secrets between them and Kyungsoo was already more than aware of the events of the party, they both stood there, watching each new notificaton.

 

"Aren't you going to tell him?"

 

Minseok sighed.

 

"I don't know how to tell him. I can't go back now that I've already started to lie."

 

"Simple. You might say a _"Hey, actually the boy dressed Batman was me. Now that you know, how about we meet to continue what we started at the party?"_ " Kyungsoo suggested, trying to mimic his friend's voice, but ended up getting hit in the arm. "Ouch! You ungrateful ogre . I'm just trying to help."

 

He thought of hitting him back, but the cell phone vibrated again in his hands, and then they turned their attention back to the screen.

 

Chameleon_81:

Is it really okay to talk about it?

 

 

Puss in Boots: Yes.

 

 

Chameleon_81: HOLLY CRAP, YOU ARE JEALOUS

YOU PUT PERIOD WHEN YOU'RE MAD

DAMMIT

I'M SORRY

 

 

Puss in Boots:

OF COURSE I'M JEALOUS

 

 

"I can't believe you're jealous of yourself, "Kyungsoo teased. "You know this is pathetic, right?"

 

"It's understandable," Minseok tried to justify himself, grumpy. "He's all smitten talking about the boy he kissed."

 

"The boy he kissed is you, you idiot."

 

"I know that! But he doesn't. What if he starts liking Batman more than he likes Puss in Boots?"

 

Kyungsoo slapped slightly his friend's forehead.

 

"That's why you should tell him the truth." The boy took the backpack and adjusted it over his shoulders, looking at the now empty field. That was a signal that he should leave soon. "Well, I can't handle your drama now. I have something to do," he said, but didn't say that this something was returning the t-shirt Jongin had lent him, because Minseok still didn't know about that. "Call me later to tell me the news."

 

After a few pats on the back, Kyungsoo followed his way up the stairs. He nodded one last time before disappearing from view down below. Minseok glanced at the screen of his cell phone, feeling his heartbeat speed up. He looked at the question he had just written, still in doubt whether to send it or not. His thumb hovered over the "Send" button in the right corner.

 

_Can we meet?_

 

The boy took a deep breath, nervous, and then looked at the words again.

 

And then deleted it.

 

***

 

Kyungsoo felt like a criminal with Jongin's T-shirt in his backpack.

 

It was as if he were hiding something that no one could see, as if he were crossing a forbidden line. And the fact that he was lurking around the men's locker room only made things even worse. He waited until the athletes finally finished to shower after the training, but didn't dare to leave his hiding place when Jongin, Sehun and Yifan appeared together in the courtyard.

The quarterback had wet hair after bath and a tank top that left part of his body exposed. He was smiling at his two friends, one arm practically hanging on Kris's shoulder as they walked toward the entrance of the school with their backpacks on their backs.

Kyungsoo followed behind them slowly, picking up the cell phone in his sweatshirt pocket to send a message.

 

 

Kyungsoo:

Hey

I need to return your shirt

Can we meet?

 

 

With some relief, the boy noticed that Jongin pushed his arm away from his friend's shoulder to pick up his cell phone from his jeans pocket. Maybe it was his imagination, but at that distance he swore he could see the athlete slow down and giggle at the screen.

 

 

Idiotic Quarterback:

That was cute

If you're missing me, just say so

 

 

Kyungsoo:

As if that was possible

 

 

Idiotic Quarterback:

Where are you?

I'll mislead the guys and sort some things out

Meet me in front of the Subway gallery in one hour

 

 

Fifty minutes later, Kyungsoo was waiting in front of the fast-food restaurant, entertained admiring the promotional images of the sandwiches and salads. He memorized the entire menu in the next seven minutes that waited for Jongin, repeatedly reading and rereading the name of the sandwiches on the signboard.

 

What was Jongin doing that he needed to wait an entire hour?

 

He had already recorded in his photographic memory the announcement of the new Beef Barbecue Bacon when he gave up standing still, deciding to venture into the gallery. He passed the clothing stores, an Italian ice cream parlor, and a seemingly abandoned photo studio until a song caught his attention at the end of the hall.

 

Kyungsoo stopped in front of a large glass and rested his elbows on the wall to watch what was happening on the other side. It was a ballet class, but the teacher soon clapped, and then the students began to scatter and get their things. He had arrived a little late to watch.

 

He followed with his eyes as the dancers picked up their bags and went out the door, now filling the gallery with laughter and small talk. His attention, however, was focused on the familiar kid with a tank top and tight pants. He was on his back, and the muscles of his shoulder and arms startled the smaller boy, recognizing the golden-skinned figure.

 

He improvised a few steps in front of the mirror, looking very happy and satisfied with his brief choreography without music. Then, Jongin hurriedly picked up his pack and reached for the cell phone in one of his pockets, typing a message quickly.

 

 

Idiot quarterback:

I'm sorry for the delay.

I'm on my way.

 

 

But it was too late for Kyungsoo to turn his back and exit the gallery. The sound of the notification made his cellphone whistle as the athlete's message arrived, and the brunet immediately looked back, his body freezing as he saw him standing behind the glass window. Jongin had never before seemed so frightened. So fragile. The hands that held the sneakers hanging around his neck gave way, his arms dangling around his body.

 

He never imagined that the football team's quarterback, the most popular athlete in the school, would attend ballet classes after school. And he doubted that anyone else knew. Kim Jongin apparently was way more complex than he seemed.

 

And Kyungsoo, probably, wasn't the only one who had a secret.


	9. The First Aid Kit

Jongin had always been good at hiding his feelings. 

As a captain, he sometimes had to keep his head up and encourage the members of his team with a smile on his face, even after a defeat. He was good at it. He knew exactly how to comfort the guys when they were all discouraged in the locker room, lost in their thoughts while the shower water took their guilt away. 

The quarterback was undeniably good at building a wall around himself, afraid to show everyone else what was hidden under all those layers. And it used to be hard, solid. Indestructible as a rock. 

He didn't know that Kyungsoo, that harmless small boy from the music club, was the first to finally enter his fortress of secrets. 

That afternoon, the boy needed a lot of effort to maintain his pose. But Jongin had been caught off guard, and he wasn't ready yet to put one of his masks. He didn't have time to make a choice or improvise. In the background, the boy didn't even know if he wanted to wear a mask near Kyungsoo. Maybe he didn't want it. Maybe he just didn't need to. 

He stared at the small figure on the other side of the glass for a few seconds, astonished. Jongin didn't expect him to arrive so soon. And now his secret was there, exposed for the first time in many years. Almost floating in the muffled air of the dance studio for anyone to see. It had been his fault. How could he have been so careless? 

"Your T-shirt," Kyungsoo murmured as he entered the room, taking slow steps toward him and holding out the garment. The athlete noticed how the big eyes watched him carefully, from the trousers to the ballet slippers around his neck. "I didn't know you danced." 

No one knew, he wanted to say, but that wasn't true. 

Joy knew. And two other people also knew his secret, even though he knew neither would say anything. 

Jongin lifted the cloth up to nose level, burying his face there, his lips extending into a smile soon after. 

"It still has your scent."

"Sorry about that," he said, awkwardly. "I swear I washed it after I used. With softener and everything." 

The athlete looked at him for a few seconds, blinking slowly. 

"I didn't say that was a bad thing." 

The studio was silent for a few seconds. Neither of them knew where to look or what to say. Jongin started to get more and more nervous. Kyungsoo must have realized that he was trying to break the ice and change the subject, but he wouldn't do it again. He didn't want to run away this time. 

"Are you going to tell anyone?" Jongin asked, leaning against the glass window and putting his ballet slippers in his backpack. 

"That you lent me a T-shirt?" 

"That I dance... you know, ballet." 

Kyungsoo frowned.

"Why would I do that? So that the whole school knows that Kim Jongin, the football star and the most popular boy, really likes to dance and he's incredibly good at it?" He took two more steps towards him. "I'm not the kind of person you think I am. I'm not looking for revenge for what you did to me or something like that." 

"I already said I didn't do it." Jongin whispered "It's true that I was filming you without your permission, but I didn't post the video." 

"Why were you filming me?" 

He shrugged. 

"It was a party, and I was a little drunk. The guys from the team found this camera and started recording. We were taking turns filming and recording everything until the memory ended up, and it was with me when I was passing in front of the bathroom. And you..." Jongin paused, swallowing. "You were singing Cheer Up in a ridiculously cute way. That was something I couldn't ignore." 

It took a while until Kyungsoo's brain registered the word "cute." He blinked a few times, stunned, but woke up after a few seconds. 

"Then why did you take the blame?" 

"Have you seen the video?" Jongin asked "It's my reflection appearing in the bathroom mirror, holding the camera." 

"Is that the only reason?" 

The athlete unzipped the backpack again and slipped his T-shirt in there pulling out his jeans. He used that time to try to formulate a decent answer in his head, but he had nothing planned. He should have predicted that getting close to someone was risky. 

"We can't talk about it," he said, finally ending the subject.

Or at least he tried. As he walked to the exit, his footsteps gaining speed in the hall, Kyungsoo was just behind. He wouldn't let that subject die. The boy was determined to have an answer. 

"We need to talk about it!" 

He took hold his arm, gently forcing him to stop. 

Neither noticed that Jongin's backpack was still a little open, the black slippers hanging slightly out. Neither of them noticed the three boys coming towards them, appearing in the distance. And they also didn't notice when the slippers fell on the sidewalk in front of the gallery. 

But Kyungsoo heard the thump as it hit the ground, and it was then that he saw Oh Sehun, Wu Yifan and Zhang Yixing approaching them, looking at the fallen object on the ground with distrust. Almost instinctively, the small one reached down to pick them up and put them in his own backpack, but he didn't have enough time to do it. 

He's protecting me, the athlete thought. 

"Well, what do we have here?" Yifan mocked, looking to Kyungsoo still with the ballet slippers in his hands. "So... the gay boy is also a ballet dancer?" 

Jongin froze. He looked at the shoes and then at his friends, worried. The boy felt more exposed than ever, as if he were about to lose everything he had. As Yifan's vicious comments began, coming one after another, he felt each of them pierce his chest like a blade. They were all aimed at Kyungsoo, but somehow they were hitting him indirectly. 

All those words charged with disdain were, in fact, for him. Jongin knew that. 

"Do you also wear a pink skirt like the girls?"

"If you stand on tiptoe, I'll bet you get taller." 

"They say gays are good at it. Do a plié so we can see." 

Jongin's eyes were beginning to get teray, but he fought back tears, seeking the small one's eyes with a certain desperation. He wanted to do something, but he felt so helpless... It took some courage to close one of his hands in a fist and prepare to move forward. 

"Show us some moves, gay boy" he continued. 

The three of them laughed and laughed and laughed. Jongin hated that more than anything. 

His short nails pressed into the palm of his hand, discounting his anger and frustration there. He needed to do something. 

"Allright." Kyungsoo finally said, taking a step forward. "I'll show you a move." 

The athlete made a move forward, but it was too late. All he could do was follow up almost in slow motion as Kyungsoo's fist hit Yifan's jaw. The tall guy screamed in pain and moved away, bringing his hand to his jaw. The other two players swored at the same time, and then the world stopped. 

The boy's glasses fell to the floor, stopping by Kris's sneakers. He snorted irritably, his chest rising and falling visibly. Jongin had never seen his face that way. Red, almost exploding with anger, veins leaping at his temples. 

"You son of a bitch," he swore, just before he stepped on the lenses with all his strenght, destroying the glasses completely. It was the second pair he lost that week. 

Sehun tried to hold him by the arms, but he wasn't fast enough. His fist flew against Kyungsoo's face, hitting him on the cheek and then his mouth. Sehun and Yixing shouted at his back, begging him to stop. Yifan only had the chance to give two punches and a kick before he was held by his friends, while Jongin pulled the boy back, pushing him away from the others. 

Now, no one laughed anymore. The tight-end propelled his body forward, trying to break free from the grip on his arms, but he couldn't. Kyungsoo took the moment to lower himself and retrieve his broken glasses, before finally turning his back on the group and moving his way in the opposite direction. 

Wu Yifan was still reciting his whole dictionary of swearing when the small boy turned around the corner, disappearing from view. 

 

***

Minseok hated extra class activities. When his colleagues at the audio and video club sent a message inviting him to participate in the recording of one of the video clips of The Pirates band, he tried to refuse. He swears he tried. The boy wasn't interested in bands, especially when it was an indie-rock garage band, but Mark was sick, and he was the only one who could handle that Super 8 Chinon 806sm. 

Luckily, the songs were good. Minseok was even getting used to the peculiar style of the members, always wearing red bandanas and pirate eyepatch. The garage at Chanyeol's house was nice, but the acoustic was awful. They would need to record their new song, Jolly Roger, in a studio separately. 

"I want it to look like a 1970s video clip," said Park Chanyeol, the tall drummer with big ears. 

The big guy's luck was that the headband was covering the side of his head. When he wore a cap, his slightly large ears were kind of bent, crumpled at the tips. It was cute and unhinged. But Minseok was forbidden to find heterosexual guys cute and unhinged, so he decided to keep that to himself. He had a deal with Kyungsoo to keep their distance and never fall in love with a heterosexual guy. 

"Like that," agreed Sunmi, the lead singer. "Like the MV of Birch Tree, by Foals. I think something a bit vintage and retro will match our concept." 

Pirates that have an unknown indie band and play in a garage full of trinkets. That was definitely a concept. 

"Luhan," Jongdae called, pointing to the speakers. "Connect the guitar in the amplifier so that we can advance things." 

"Okay." 

Four-eyed-Jongdae was the older member of the band, newly graduated in high school and still trying to enter a university. Now, however, Minseok thought calling him by the nickname made no sense at all. The last time he'd seen him, Kim Jongdae was still a nerd with Coke-bottle glasses who was mocked by the veterans. And not that Greek god with contacts, a cute toupee, and a sleeveless shirt.

Luhan, the quiet chinese, was probably the coolest one. He liked to wear ripped jeans, T-shirts with prints of classic bands, and was almost always carrying his Fender Stratocaster guitar across his body. He was wearing a black waistcoat over a white tank top of The Smiths and his blond hair was covered by the red headband. 

The four of them formed The Pirates, the most eccentric band with the highest concentration of handsome boys per square meter. It was not the same type of beauty as Kim Jongin and the other athletes on the football team, but it was definitely his kind of ideal beauty. Maybe attending an extraclass activity wasn't as bad as it seemed. 

Wendy, as always, was there to coordinate everything. The girl liked to participate effectively in all clubs, although she was only officially registered on the prom orginization committee and at the journalism club.

"How many shots are there in the script, Minseokiki?" she asked, calling him by his Instagram user name. 

"A whole shot with two different angles, four medium frames and four in the foreground." He flipped the stack of papers over the counter, stopping at a specific page when necessary. "I think it would be cool to make a shot of the rings on Sunmi's fingers while she holds the mike."

"And the instruments?"

"That would be nice, too. I think I need to improvise." 

"Great, then..." She stopped for a few seconds, calculating in silence. "Eleven shots? Twelve? "

"I prefer Only God knows." 

"That's a nice way of doing math," she agreed cheerfully. "I like the way you think." 

He pointed to the script again.

"Since everything is going to be recorded with a single camera, we'll need at least three perfect takes of the whole song. I did it on the script template in columns, so the camera moves are noted here in the corner. And here are some important remarks too." 

Park's garage was filled with vinyl records on the walls, Marshall's speakers, a white board full of notes and lyrics, a dusty bookcase jammed with old books and colorful incandescent lamps down two threads that crossed the room. It did not look anything like a traditional garage, and that was good. 

Jaemin and two other girls were in charge of holding lamps near the stage, because they had no soft boxes and had to improvise. The illumination was good, although it turned a bit yellowish, but the colored lights succeeded to make up for it in the end. The music was really good. A mix of Arcade Fire with The Kooks. 

During the third take, Minseok filmed Sunmi's fingers holding the microphone, the large, heavy rings being the focus of the camera. He also managed to catch the exact moment when Chanyeol threw his drumsticks up and took them back. When he pointed the camera at Jongdae, he was nodding softly as he sang the chorus, eyes closed, and probably didn't even notice his approach. He also really liked the image he captured of Luhan raising the eye patch and winking at him before focusing on the strings of his guitar again. 

"We're thinking of shooting some scenes in the arcade near the station," Jongdae said after the filming. His now sweaty toupee insisted on falling on his forehead. "Are you free next week?" 

Minseok considered refusing. Again. But he just could not say no to three cute boys, all sweaty and dressed as pirates. 

"Yeah, of course." 

By the end of the day, Wendy had already activated her Whimsical Journalist mode and was now doing a research with all the survivors of that exhausting day. iPad in hand, she showed the subject of her next column in the school newspaper: a story about Gray Wolf, the mysterious mascot of the school. 

Of course Minseok had heard of that. 

The Yongsan team's mascot used to be Kibum, but since he graduated three years ago, someone had taken the position. And, ironically, no one had ever found out who was beneath the gray wolf costume. 

"Isn't it funny how this person has been disguised for so long that nobody knows who it is?" The girl asked euphorically. Everything that was related to investigative journalism seemed to leave her ecstatic, although obviously it seemed more like gossip than anything else. "He is good at blending in, like a chameleon. Isn't that incredible?" 

The word chameleon left Minseok on high alert. In fact, more than that. That phrase awakened something inside him. A suspicion, maybe. Wendy, after all, knew everything about everyone in the school. What if she knew about his conversations with Chameleon _81 and was trying to give him a hint? 

"Minseokiki," she called, turning the iPad screen to him. "Do you have anyone you suspect?" By reflex, the boy just shook his head. And then she turned to the others. "I'm going to make a post for a gambling game on Drop That tomorrow. The money raised will be used for the organization of the prom, and whoever gets right Gray Wolf's identity will win a basket full of candy." 

The pieces of the puzzle were coming together. Minseok felt it. And when a click made his brain start working, he realized that he might be closer to finding out who his secret crush was than he had imagined. 

What if Gray Wolf and Chameleon were the same person? 

What if Wendy had planned to be there, hanging around the boys at the audio and video club, just because she knew the suspect was right under her nose? 

There were many questions haunting Minseok's thoughts. And now he knew he was closer than ever to finally finding the answers. 

***

Kyungsoo's room was a mixture of blue and gray, with a light beige rug and very few monochromatic frames on the wall. It wasn't cool, there were no posters on the wall, not even a fifty-inch television. It was simple and basic. He had a lamp on the dresser for reading, a special exhibitor for his eyeglasses collection, and two certificates of the fourth and fifth grade spelling contests on one of the walls. 

It was organized, and he liked it. Over the years, he had absorbed his best friend's obsession of keeping everything tidy, from shirts classified as "casual" and "modern" to underwear separated by color. 

He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, trying to study for the Ethic exam for almost an hour, but he couldn't concentrate on the notes in his notebook. And the news resonating softly on the TV wasn't the only thing to blame. He had a lot to think about: the night of the freshmen party, and how Jongin had leaned in to kiss him a few seconds before being interrupted and having to flee, what had happened earlier in the dance studio, and especially in the ballet slippers of the quarterback hidden inside his closet. 

In addition, the incident from earlier was on his mind in an endless replay. He couldn't get ot of his head the idea that Kris had done it all on purpose. He knew that the shoes were not Kyungsoo's. The boy realized this by the way he glanced sideways at his friend at every insult. But why? 

He shouldn't think about it. Not about the near-kiss in the broom closet, at least. So, to direct hia attention to something else, he decided to pick up the cell phone and open the front camera. He observed for the thousandth time that day how his face was after taking two punches from Wu Yifan. 

It was better than to think about kissing Jongin. 

Kyungsoo was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even heard when the first crack came from the window. He began to answer one of the exercises on Plato and Aristotle, but the words suddenly turned into a monstrous scribble, discounting his irritation there until the tip of the pencil was broken, which actually took no more than a few seconds. 

Something hit his window again. This time, the boy listened, but didn't pay much attention. They had a tree in the garden, and it wasn't uncommon for one of the branches to strike the glass when it was windy. He just ignored it. But when the noise became insistent, repetitive, he noticed something was wrong. 

As he pulled back the curtains and lifted the wooden frame, he saw Kim Jongin at the end of the climb up to the second floor, supporting the sneakers on the panel made of wooden slats that his mother used to put plants on. The boy came in without thinking twice, crossing one of his legs on the window sill. 

"Hey," he said, smiling. The boy raised his arm, proudly showing the bag he held in one hand. "I brought you some things." 

Kyungsoo blinked, stunned. What the hell was he doing there? 

"For me?" he asked, still surprised by the unexpected visit. He pulled the athlete by the shoulders, helping him to enter the room once and for all. Then he placed his forefinger over his mouth to ask for silence. "Ssshh. My parents are downstairs." 

Impertnent as he was, Jongin soon sat on his bed uninvited, rummaging through the plastic bag. Kyungsoo repeated the gesture, sitting down next to him to watch what was in there. 

"I brought saline solution, ointment, painkillers and a bottle of Gatorade." He looked into the newly purchased products, picking up the already warm bottle of isotonic and giving it to Kyungsoo. "Oh, and band-aids, too." 

He laughed. A delicious laugh that came from the back of his throat. 

"And what is all this for?" 

"Well, since you've been punched because of me, that's the least I can do." 

"You could have just sent a message saying, "Thank you."" Kyungsoo suggested, watching as he wet a cotton in the saline solution. "And besides, I didn't do that for you. I did it for myself." 

"Liar."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not lying. Why do you think I would have any concern for you?" 

"Liar." Jongin repeated playfully. "I haven't known you a long time, but I know you're not the kind of person who does selfish things. You spend more time worrying about others than about yourself. And, by the way, that's something I think is nice of you. "

Jongin sat on the side of the bed, only one leg on the mattress, while the other hung out. It was the perfect position for them to face each other. Kyungsoo wasn't expecting it. Then, as one of the quarterback's hands gripped the back of his neck, pulling his face toward him, he almost felt his body freezing. 

Luckily, he just wanted to treat his wounds. There was a small cut at the corner of his mouth and a little more on his cheek, because apparently Kris liked to wear heavy rings. And metal objects and fights were not a good combination. Kyungsoo retreated instinctly as he pressed the wet cotton over his skin. 

"Seriously. You don't have to... "

"Does it hurt?" He questioned, getting his face closer to blow on his cheek. He pressed the cut a few more times, clearing the wound. 

"A little," the smaller one confessed. 

Jongin continued with his task. Cleaning, blowing, gently putting ointment with the tips of the fingers and, finally, putting a band-aid on top. Kyungsoo had to pretend that he wasn't nervous about the small distance between them.

"Being a volunteer in the infirmary for three months taught me a few things," the athlete bragged, giving a short laugh. He lifted the small one's face by his chin, concentrating on the small cut in the corner of his lower lip. "Does it hurt when I press?" 

Kyungsoo wanted to shake his head, but he thought it best to keep it still. The boy was focused on passing the cotton there, he didn't want to disturb it.

"No," he murmured. "Its doesn't hurt."

"That's good."

As he pressed the cut with the cotton, cleaning it with saline solution, Kyungsoo didn't even know where to look. The boy didn't want to stare at his eyes or his half open mouth, so he decided to focus on the golden collar bone and the white tank top, his arms now covered by his sweatshirt.

Sometimes, however, he was forced to look at his face again, speacially when the cut would hurt and he let out a growl.

"So..." Jongin started, smirking. "Last time, you were telling me about how you realized you were gay.

"Are you really trying to distract me with small talk?" he laughed. "I'm no longer a child, you know that, right?

"I know. Children do not throw a punch like that in Wu Yifan. What is a shame, actually, because I would love to see it."

Kyungsoo laughed again. 

"What do you want to know?"

"Are you a virgin?" he asked, rising an eyebrow in a mischievous way. And Kyungsoo realized that he was teasing him. 

He was paralyzed for some time, thinking about how to answer without looking like an idiot. 

"That's none of your business." 

"Okay, so you're a virgin," the athlete concluded. "Have you ever kissed anyone?" 

"Yes."

"Boy or girl?" 

Kyungsoo took a deep breath. 

"Girl," he replied, finally. "It was in eighth grade, during a truth or dare challenge. I didn't have much of a choice. The people were all gathered in the backyard of Siwon's house and he almost had a stroke when he learned that people were kissing during the game."

"The party where they served a wafer to eat? I remember this. Aren't his parents, like, super religious? He has a chastity ring and everything. Sex just after marriage and that whole thing, right?" 

They laughed together, still very close, though Jongin had already left his first-aid kit aside by now. 

"Yeah. It was embarrassing. He made us apologize to his parents, and, after all, the party became a mass. His father is a musician and a pastor, so he recited an endless passage from the bible while playing the guitar." 

Jongin stretched his arm to place the saline and the cotton box on the dresser. 

"So you don't have any experience with boys yet?" 

Kyungsoo nodded. 

"Zero."

"A gay boy with no gay background. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard." He took the backpack off one of his shoulders and opened its side pocket, pulling out a pen. A red permanent market. Exactly like the one used to write "cute" on the door of the men's room, Kyungso realized. "So, look, we'll do a little exercise here." 

Jongin grabbed his arm and drew him closer, tracing a crooked and blurred sandglass on his wrist. 

"What is this?" 

"It's a way to travel in time. My mother used to do this to me when I was little." 

Kyungsoo smiled, interested. 

"And where are we going?" 

"I do not think it's fair that the Choi family ruined the party like that, so we have to fix it. We're going to the eighth grade." He took the bottle of Gatorade still sealed, placed it over the clear space between his legs in the bed and spun it around, waiting for it to stop pointing at them. "Truth or dare." 

This time, the small guy laughed. He didn't remember ever having laughed like that near Jongin, so that was probably the first time.

"You can't be serious." 

"Oh, I'm serious," he countered, and then repeated. "Truth or dare." 

He finally surrendered, swallowing hard before answering. 

"Truth." 

Jongin pushed the bottle away, moving his body forward until his leg was touching Kyungsoo's. The smile on his face was malicious as he raised an eyebrow, trying to tease him. 

"Is it true that you want to kiss me now?" 

"I changed my mind. Dare." 

Jongin chuckled and put his hands on the back of Kyungsoo's neck. 

"I dare you to kiss me. Here. Right now." 

"You're terrible, quarterback. Stop that. My mother is only a few rooms away. You can't just..." Jongin leaned forward, pressing their lips together, before pulling away again "come here in the middle of the night..." Another kiss. This time it lasted longer, his fingers massaging the back of his neck. "And..." One more kiss. And another. And another. "Oh, screw it." 

Jongin smiled for two great reasons: first, because it was the first time he heard Kyungsoo swearing, and also because his hands were now climbing up his neck. 

Kyungsoo didn't know since when he wanted to kiss Jongin. But as soon as he gave up, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling his body against his own, he realized that he might have wanted that for a long time because he was desperate to feel him ever closer, and with the athlete didn't seem to be different. 

It was Jongin who dictated the rhythm of the kiss. He began slowly, with a deliciously slow lip brush, feeling the softness of their mouths against each other. Pressing, testing, tasting. But the speed increased little by little, and none of them could tell what made it from an innocent kiss to a make out session in a matter of seconds. 

Maybe it was Jongin's fingers that had grabbed Kyungsoo's jeans, pulling his hips forward, or the accelerated breathing of the smaller boy. Or, perhaps, the sigh they let out when their lips parted. They stood with their faces a few inches apart, breathing against each other. 

"May I take off your glasses?" the brunette asked, voice slightly raspy. 

He nodded, consenting. 

"Yes." 

And then they leaned in for a new kiss. 

Now, without the glasses as an obstacle to increase the pace, and with his hand on Kyungsoo's waist, the quarterback squeezed him, hearing him grunt against his mouth. And the small boy didn't know exactly where to put his hands. They passed around the athlete's body - on his shoulders, on his neck, on his hair, and on his back - because, to be honest, he couldn't keep them stopped for long. 

The way his head moved as he kissed left Kyungsoo in ecstasy. He had never kissed like that, let alone a boy. His body was sensitive, the nerve endings seeming to short-circuit each time he touched him in a different place. The small guy thought he could die with his hands in his hips. 

"Lie down, Kyungsoo," he whispered, pushing his chest down with one hand. And that was the first time he'd called him by his name. 

He dropped down on the mattress, his back sinking with his weight on his body. 

The boy was definitely not prepared for that. 

He closed his eyes tightly and pressed his lips together as Jongin's mouth began to leave kisses on his neck. Almost unconsciously, he cocked his head to the side so the area would be clear. Kyungsoo had no idea what he was doing, but he knew he didn't want to stop. Then, as the other boy's tongue, teeth and mouth left marks on his skin, rising to the lobe of his ear, he grabbed the quarterback's hair, encouraging him to continue.

That was good, he had to admit. The boy wondered how the hell he'd lived without Jongin's breathing blowing in his ear for so long. He held his head tightly, pulling him up, because the small boy was getting dizzier, and he was desperate to kiss him again. The athlete went up with wet kisses on his neck, past his jaw and finally back to his mouth. 

Kyungsoo's hands were now gripping his shoulders, making his coat slip down his arms and feeling his muscles contract under his fingers. The brunette sat over his body, one leg on each side, finally pulling away his chest. He watched the mess the small guy was, and that was the most beautiful mess he had ever seen. 

His eyes were half-closed and misty, his cheeks lightly flushed, his hands lying on Jongin's thighs, his fingers moving his fingers in a distracted way over his pants. The athlete leaned down and kissed his mouth, half-open, before moving away again. 

They exchanged glances for a while until they realized what had happened. 

They had kissed. They had really kissed each other. 

Jongin quickly got out of his lap and dropped on the mattress beside him. The gesture was so abrupt that the small boy felt empty without the weight of the other boy's body above his own. But, on the other hand, he was grateful that he had moved away. He would not know what to do if certain things woke up inside his pants. 

They spent some time observing the star stickers that were on the ceiling since Kyungsoo was five, waiting until their breaths calmed or that one of them would break the ice with some stupid joke. 

And stupid jokes were Kim Jongin's specialty. 

"Oh," he said, laughing mutely. "If Siwon's parents had seen this, they would have exorcised us."

Kyungsoo laughed too, without taking his eyes off the ceiling. 

"Thank you." 

"I know I'm a good kisser and everything, but thank me is kind of..." 

"Thanks for the medicine, the band-aids and the warm Gatorade," he interrupted. 

Jongin got up and straightened his coat over his shoulders again. Then he paced the room to collect his things. Before he left, he took back his slippers and put them in his backpack, with half of his body out of the window. 

The small one put hia glasses back and also got up, going to him to close the window when it left. The tension was strange, and neither of them knew how to look at each other after that. 

Jongin shook Kyungsoo's hair, messing it up. He leaned forward again, still holding lightly at the back of his neck as he kissed him again. 

"Thank you... for what you did today," he smiled. "You're a nice guy Kyungsoo." 

Kyungsoo's glasses twisted in his face as he watched the boy go back down the path that had come, waving to him from the garden and then disappearing on the empty and dark street. He stood there for a long thinking, his fingers touching his own lips. 

He had kissed Kim Jongin. 

When he laid down to sleep, the boy spent some time observing the sandglass drawn on his wrist, thinking of the word "cutie" and especially wishing that that strategy really worked. Because, if he could, he would definitely go back in time. 

Just to be able to do it all again.


End file.
